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LIBRARY 

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PRINCETON,  N  J. 

The  Stephen  Collins  Donation. 


AC  8  . S73  1843 
Stephon  James,  1789-185< 

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CRITICAL 


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JAMES  STEPHEN. 


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PHILADELPHIA: 
CAREY  AND  HART. 


1843. 


Wm.  S.  Young,  Printer, 


CONTENTS. 


Life  of  William  Wilberforce,  ..... 

.  13 

The  Lives  of  Whitfield  and  Froude, 

.  58 

D’Aubigne’s  History  of  the  Great  Reformation, 

.  100 

Life  and  Times  of  Richard  Baxter,  .... 

.  150 

Physical  Theory  of  Another  Life,  .... 

.  197 

The  Port-Royalists, . 

.  248 

Ignatius  Loyola  and  his  Associates, 

.  314 

Taylor’s  Edwin  the  Fair, . 

.  386 

Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
v  in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/criticalmiscella00step_1 


MISCELLANIES, 

BY 

JAMES  STEPHEN. 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE  BY  HIS  SONS.* 

(Edinburgh  Review,  1838.) 

These  volumes  record  the  Life  of  a  man  who,  in  an  age 
fertile  beyond  most  others  in  illustrious  characters,  reached, 
by  paths  till  then  unexplored,  an  eminence  never  before  at¬ 
tained  by  any  private  member  of  the  British  Parliament. 
We  believe  we  shall  render  an  acceptable  service  to  our 
readers,  by  placing  them  in  possession  of  a  general  outline 
of  this  biography. 

William  Wilberforce  was  born  at  Hull  on  the  24th  of 
August,  1759.  His  father,  a  merchant  of  that  town,  traced 
his  descent  from  a  family  which  had  for  many  generations 
possessed  a  large  estate  at  Wilberfoss,  in  the  East  Riding 
of  the  county  of  York.  From  that  place  was  derived  the 
name  which  the  taste,  or  caprice  of  his  later  progenitors, 
modulated  into  the  form  in  which  it  was  borne  by  their 
celebrated  descendant.  His  mother  was  nearly  allied  to 
many  persons  of  consideration;  amongst  whom  are  num¬ 
bered  the  present  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Chester,  and 
the  members  of  the  great  London  banking-house,  of  which 
Lord  Carrington  was  the  head. 

*  Life  of  William  Wilberforce.  By  his  Sons  Robert  Isaac 
Wilberforce,  M.  A.,  Vicar  of  East  Furlough,  late  Fellow  of  Oriel 
(Allege;  and  Samuel  Wilberforce,  M.  A-,  Rector  of  Brighstonr* 
4  vols.  bvo.  London,  ItiikL 


14 


stetiien’s  miscellanies. 


The  father  of  William  Wilberforce  died  before  his  son 
had  completed  his  tenth  year;  and  the  ample  patrimony 
which  he  then  inherited  was  afterwards  largely  increased 
on  the  death  of  a  paternal  uncle,  to  whose  guardianship 
his  childhood  was  committed.  By  that  kinsman  he  was 
placed  at  a  school  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  his 
own  residence  at  Wimbledon,  in  Surry.  The  following 
are  the  characteristic  terms  in  which,  at  the  distance  of 
many  years,  the  pupil  recorded  his  recollections  of  this 
first  stage  of  his  literary  education: — “  Mr.  Chalmers,  the 
master,  himself  a  Scotchman,  had  an  usher  of  the  same 
nation,  whose  red  beard,  for  he  scarcely  shaved  once  a 
month,  I  shall  never  forget.  They  taught  French,  Arith¬ 
metic,  and  Latin.  With  Greek  we  did  not  much  meddle. 
It  was  frequented  chiefly  by  the  sons  of  merchants,  and 
they  taught  therefore  every  thing,  and  nothing.  Here  I 
continued  some  time  as  a  parlour  boarder.  I  was  sent  at 
first  among  the  lodgers,  and  I  can  remember,  even  now, 
the  nauseous  food  with  which  we  were  supplied,  and  which 
I  could  not  eat  without  sickness.” 

His  early  years  were  not,  however,  to  pass  away  with¬ 
out  some  impressions  more  important,  if  not  more  abiding, 
than  those  which  had  been  left  on  his  sensitive  nerves  by 
the  red  beard  of  one  of  his  Scotch  teachers,  and  by  the  ill 
savour  of  the  dinners  of  the  other.  His  uncle’s  wife  was 
a  disciple  of  George  Whitfield,  and  under  her  pious  care 
he  acquired  a  familiarity  with  the  Sacred  Writings,  and  a 
habit  of  devotion  of  which  the  results  were  perceptible 
throughout  the  whole  of  his  more  mature  life.  While  still  a 
school-boy,  he  had  written  several  religious  letters,  “  much 
in  accordance  with  the  opinions  which  he  subsequently 
adopted,”  and  which,  but  for  his  peremptory  interdict,  the 
zeal  of  some  indiscreet  friend  would  have  given  to  the 
world.  “  If  I  had  staid  with  my  uncle,  I  should  probably 
have  been  a  bigoted  despised  Methodist,”  is  the  conclusion 
which  Mr.  Wilberforce  formed  on  looking  back  to  this 
period,  after  an  interval  of  nearly  thirty  years.  His  mo¬ 
ther’s  foresight,  apprehending  this  result,  induced  her  to 
withdraw  him  from  his  uncle’s  house,  and  to  place  him 
under  the  charge  of  the  master  of  the  endowed  school  at 
Pocklington,  in  Yorkshire, — a  sound  and  well-beneficed  di¬ 
vine,  whose  orthodoxy  would  seem  to  have  been  entirely 
unalloyed  by  the  rigours  of  Methodism.  The  boy  was 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


15 


encouraged  to  lead  a  life  of  idleness  and  pleasure,  wasting 
his  time  in  a  round  of  visits  to  the  neighbouring  gentry,  to 
whom  he  was  recommended  by  his  social  talents,  espe¬ 
cially  by  his  rare  skill  in  singing;  while,  during  his  school 
vacations,  the  religious  impressions  of  his  childhood  were 
combated  by  a  constant  succession  of  such  convivial  gaie¬ 
ties  as  the  town  of  Hull  could  afford.  Ill  as  this  discipline 
was  calculated  to  lay  the  foundation  of  good  intellectual 
habits,  it  was  still  less  adapted  to  substitute  for  the  excite- 
ment  and  dogmatism  of  Whitfield’s  system,  a  piety  resting 
on  a  nobler  and  more  secure  basis.  One  remarkable  indi¬ 
cation,  however,  was  given  of  the  character  by  which  his 
future  life  was  to  be  distinguished.  He  placed  in  the  hands 
of  a  schoolfellow,  (who  survives  to  record  the  fact,)  a  letter 
to  be  conveyed  to  the  editor  of  the  York  paper,  which  he 
stated  to  be  “  in  condemnation  of  the  odious  traffic  in  hu¬ 
man  flesh.” — On  the  same  authority  he  is  reported  to  have 
“  greatly  excelled  ail  the  other  'boys  in  his  compositions, 
though  seldom  beginning  them  till  the  eleventh  hour.” 

From  sehool  Mr.  Wilberforce  was  transferred  at  the  age 
of  seventeen,  to  St.  John’s  College,  Cambridge.  We  trust 
that  the  picture  which  he  has  drawn  of  the  education  of  a 
young  gentleman  of  fortune,  in  an  English  university,  to¬ 
wards  the  close  of  the  last  century,  will  seem  an  incredible 
fiction  to  the  present  members  of  that  learned  society.  “  The 
Fellows  of  the  College,”  he  says,  “  did  not  act  towards  me 
the  part  of  Christians,  or  even  of  honest  men.  Their  ob¬ 
ject  seemed  to  be  to  make  and  keep  me  idle.  If  ever  I 
appeared  studious,  they  would  say  to  me — £  Why,  in  the 
world  should  a  man  of  your  fortune  trouble  himself  with 
fagging?’  I  w'as  a  good  classic,  and  acquitted  myself  well 
in  the  College  examinations,  but  mathematics,  which  my 
mind  greatly  needed,  I  almost  entirely  neglected,  and  was 
told  that  I  was  too  clever  to  require  them.” 

With  such  a  preparation  for  the  duties  of  active  life,  Mr. 
Wilberforce  passed  at  a  single  step  from  the  University  to 
the  House  of  Commons*  The  general  election  of  1780, 
occurring  within  less  than  a  month  from  the  completion  of 
his  twenty-first  year,  “  the  affection  of  his  townsmen,  ‘  not 
unaided  by’  an  expenditure  of  from  eight  to  nine  thousand 
pounds,”  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  poll  for  “  the  town 
and  county  of  Hull,”  Although  at  this  time  Mr.  Wilber¬ 
force  states  himself  to  have  been  “so  ignorant  of  general 


16 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


society  as  to  have  come  up  to  London  stored  with  argu¬ 
ments  to  prove  the  authenticity  of  Rowley’s  Poems,”  yet 
so  rich  and  so  accomplished  an  aspirant  could  not  long  be 
excluded  from  the  mysteries  of  the  world  of  fashion  which 
now  burst  upon  him.  Five  clubs  enrolled  him  among  their 
members.  He  “chatted,  played  at  cards,  or  gambled” 
with  Fox,  Sheridan,  and  Fitzpatrick — fascinated  the  Prince 
of  Wales  by  his  singing  at  Devonshire  House — produced 
inimitable  imitations  of  Lord  North’s  voice  and  manner — 
sang  catches  with  Lord  Sandwich — exchanged  epigrams 
with  Mrs.  C reeve — partook  of  a  Shaksperian  dinner  at  the 
Boar,  in  East  Cheap — “shirked  the  Duchess  of  Gordon” 
— and  danced  till  five  in  the  morning  at  Almack’s.  The 
lassitude  of  fashionable  life  was  effectually  relieved  by  the 
duties  or  amusements  of  a  Parliamentary  career,  not  unat¬ 
tended  by  some  brilliant  success.  Too  rich  to  look  to 
public  service  as  a  means  of  subsistence,  and,  at  this  pe¬ 
riod,  ambitious  rather  of  distinction  than  of  eminence,  Mr. 
Wilberforce  enjoyed  the  rare  luxury  of  complete  indepen¬ 
dence.  Though  a  decided  opponent  of  the  North  American 
war,  he  voted  with  Lord  North  against  Sir  Fletcher  Nor¬ 
ton’s  re-election  as  Speaker,  and  opposed  Mr.  Pitt  on  the 
second  occasion  of  his  addressing  the  House,  although  he 
was  already  numbered  amongst  the  most  intimate  of  his 
friends.  This  alliance,  commenced  apparently  at  the  Uni¬ 
versity,  had  ripened  into  an  affectionate  union  which  none 
of  the  vicissitudes  of  political  life  could  afterwards  dissolve. 
They  partook  in  each  other’s  labours  and  amusements,  and 
the  zest  with  which  Mr.  Pitt  indulged  in  these  relaxations, 
throws  a  new  and  unexpected  light  on  his  character.  They 
joined  together  in  founding  a  club,  at  which,  for  two  suc¬ 
cessive  winters,  Pitt  spent  his  evenings,  while,  at  Mr.  Wil- 
berforce’s  villa  at  Wimbledon,  he  was  established  rather 
as  an  inmate  than  as  a  guest.  There  he  indulged  himself 
even  in  boisterous  gaiety;  and  it  strangely  disturbs  our 
associations  to  read  of  the  son  and  rival  of  Lord  Chatham 
rising  early  in  the  morning  to  sow  the  flower-beds  with 
the  fragments  of  a  dress-hat  with  which  Lord  Harrowby 
had  come  down  from  the  opera.  There  also  were  arranged 
fishing  and  shooting  parties;  in  one  of  which  the  future 
champion  of  the  anti-Gallican  war  narrowly  escaped  an 
untimely  grave  from  the  misdirected  gun  of  his  friend. 
On  the  banks  of  Windermere  also,  Mr.  Wilberforce  pos- 


LirE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


17 


sessed  a  residence,  where  the  Parliamentary  vacation  found 
him  “surrounded  with  a  goodly  assortment  of  books.” 
But  the  discovery  was  already  made  that  the  autumnal 
ennui  of  the  fashionable  world  might  find  relief  among  the 
lakes  and  mountains  of  Westmoreland,  and  “boating,  riding, 
and  continual  parties”  fully  occupied  the  time  which  had 
been  devoted  to  retirement  and  study.  From  these  amici 
fures  temporis  Mr.  Wilberforce  escaped,  in  the  autumn  of 
1783,  to  pass  a  few  weeks  with  Mr.  Pitt  in  France. 
They  readily  found  introductions  to  the  supper  table  of 
Marie  Antoinette,  and  the  other  festivities  of  Fontainbleau. 
Louis  XVI.  does  not  appear  to  have  made  a  very  flattering 
impression  on  his  young  guests.  H  The  King,”  says  Mr. 
Wilberforce,  in  a  letter  written  about  that  time,  “  is  so 
strange  a  being  of  the  hog  kind,  that  it  is  worth  going  a 
hundred  miles  for  a  sight  of  him,  especially  a  boar-hunting.” 
At  Paris  “  he  received  with  interest  the  hearty  greetings 
which  Dr.  Franklin  tendered  to  a  rising  member  of  the 
English  Parliament,  who  had  opposed  the  American  war.” 

Graver  cares  awaited  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  rettirn  to  Eng- 
land.  He  arrived  in  time  to  second  Mr.  Pitt’s  opposition 
to  the  India  Bill,  and  to  support  him  in  his  memorable 
struggle  against  the  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  Coalition  was  now  the  one  subject  of  popular  invec¬ 
tive;  and,  at  a  public  meeting  in  the  Castle-yard  at  York, 
in  March,  1784,  Mr.  Wilberforce  condemned  their  mea¬ 
sures,  in  a  speech  which  was  received  with  the  loudest 
applause.  The  praise  of  James  Boswell  is  characteristic 
at  once  of  the  speaker  and  of  the  critic.  In  an  account  of 
the  scene  which  ho  transmitted  to  Mr.  Dundas,  “  I  saw,” 
writes  Boswell,  “  what  seemed  a  mere  shrimp,  mount  upon 
the  table,  but,  as  I  listened,  he  grew  and  grew,  until  the 
shrimp  became  a  whale.”  A  still  more  convincing  attes¬ 
tation  to  his  eloquence  is  to  be  found  in  the  consequences 
to  which  it  led.  Mr.  Wilberforce  attended  the  meeting 
with  the  avowed  purpose  of  defeating,  at  the  approaching 
election,  the  predominant  influence  of  the  great  Whig  fami¬ 
lies  of  Yorkshire,  and  with  the  secret  design  of  becoming 
a  candidate  for  the  county.  During  his  speech  the  cry  of 
“  Wilberforce  and  Liberty”  was  raised  by  the  crowd;  and 
the  transition  was  obvious  and  readily  made,  to  “  Wilber¬ 
force  and  the  Representation  of  Yorkshire.”  The  current 
of  popular  favour  flowed  strongly  in  his  support.  He  was 


18 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


the  opponent  of  the  Coalition  and  the  India  Bill,  and  the 
friend  and  zealous  partisan  of  Mr.  Pitt;  then  rich  in  here¬ 
ditary  honours,  in  personal  renown,  and  in  the  brightest 
promise.  Large  subscriptions  defrayed  the  expense  of  the 
contest,  and,  without  venturing  to  the  poll,  his  Whig  op¬ 
ponents  surrendered  to  him  a  seat,  which  he  continued  to 
occupy,  without  intermission,  for  many  successive  Parlia¬ 
ments.  With  this  memorable  triumph  Mr.  Wilberforce 
closed  his  twenty-fifth  year,  and  returned  to  London  in 
possession  of  whatever  could  gratify  the  wishes,  or  exalt 
the  hopes  of  a  candidate  for  fame,  on  the  noblest  theatre 
of  civil  action  which  the  world  had  thrown  open  to  the 
ambition  of  private  men. 

The  time  had,  however,  arrived  at  which  a  new  direction 
was  to  be  given  to  the  thoughts  and  pursuits  of  this  favour¬ 
ite  of  nature  and  fortune.  Before  taking  his  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  as  member  for  the  county  of  York, 
Mr.  Wilberforce,  accompanied  by  some  female  relations, 
and  by  Isaac  Milner,  the  late  Dean  of  Carlisle^  undertook 
a  journey  to  the  south  of  France,  and  thence  through  Swit¬ 
zerland  to  the  German  Spa.  This  expedition,  interrupted 
by  a  temporary  return  to  England,  during  the  winter  of 
1784-5,  continued  some  months,  and  forms  a  memorable 
era  in  his  life.  The  lessons  which  he  had  learned  in  child¬ 
hood  at  Wimbledon  had  left  an  indelible  impression  on  a 
mind  peculiarly  susceptible  of  every  tender  and  profound 
emotion.  The  dissipation  of  his  subsequent  days  had  re¬ 
tarded  the  growth  of  those  seeds  of  early  piety,  but  had  not 
entirely  choked  them.  To  the  companions  of  his  youth 
many  indications  had  occasionally  been  given,  that  their 
gay  associate  was  revolving  deeper  thoughts  than  formed 
the  staple  of  their  ordinary  social  intercourse.  These  were 
now  to  take  entire  possession  of  his  mind,  and  to  regulate 
the  whole  of  his  future  conduct.  The  opinions  of  Whit¬ 
field  had  found  a  more  impressive  expositor  than  the  good 
aunt  who  had  originally  explained  and  enforced  them. 

Isaac  Milner  was  a  remarkable  man,  and  hut  for  the 
early  possession  of  three  great  ecclesiastical  sinecures, 
which  enabled  him  to  gratify  his  constitutional  indolence, 
would  probably  have  attained  considerable  distinction  in 
physical  and  in  theological  science.  In  a  narrow  collegiate 
circle  he  exercised  a  colloquial  despotism  akin  to  that  which 
Johnson  had  established,  and  to  which  Parr  aspired,  amongst 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


19 


the  men  of  letters  and  the  statesmen  of  their  age.  But  Mil¬ 
ner’s  dogmatism  was  relieved  by  a  tenderness  of  heart  not 
inferior  to  that  of  the  great  moralist  himself;  and  was  in¬ 
formed  by  a  theology  incomparably  more  profound,  and 
more  fitted  to  practical  uses,  than  that  of  the  redoubted 
o-rammarian.  He  was  amongst  the  dearest  of  the  friends 
of  Mr.  Wilberforce,  and  now  became  his  preceptor  and 
his  spiritual  guide. 

The  day  dreams  on  the  subject  of  religious  conversions, 
which  they  who  list  may  hear  on  every  side,  are,  like  other 
dreams,  the  types  of  substantial  realities.  Though  the 
workings  of  the  Almighty  hand  are  distinctly  visible  only 
to  the  omniscient  eye,  yet  even  our  narrow  faculties  can 
often  trace  the  movements  of  that  perennial  under-current 
which  controls  the  sequences  of  human  life,  and  imparts 
to  them  the  character  of  moral  discipline.  In  the  compre¬ 
hensive  scheme  of  the  Supreme  Governor  of  the  world  for 
the  progressive  advancement  of  the  human  race,  are  com¬ 
prised  innumerable  subordinate  plans  for  the  improvement 
of  the  individuals  of  which  it  is  composed;  and  whether  we 
conceive  of  these  as  the  result  of  some  preordained  system, 
or  as  produced  by  the  immediate  interposition  of  God,  we 
equally  acknowledge  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Providence, 
and  refer  to  him  as  the  author  of  those  salutary  revolutions 
of  human  character,  of  which  the  reality  is  beyond  dispute. 
It  is  a  simple  matter  of  fact,  of  which  these  volumes  afford 
the  most  conclusive  proof,  that,  about  the  twenty-sixth 
year  of  his  age,  Mr.  Wilberforce  was  the  subject  of  such 
a  change;  and  that  it  continued  for  half  a  century  to  give 
an  altered  direction  to  his  whole  system  of  thought  and  ac¬ 
tion.  Waiving  all  discussion  as  to  the  mode  in  which  the 
divine  agency  may  have  been  employed  to  accomplish  this 
result,  it  is  more  to  our  purpose  to  inquire  in  what  the 
change  really  consisted,  and  what  were  the  consequences 
for  which  it  prepared  the  way. 

The  basis  of  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  natural  character  was, 
an  intense  fellow-feeling  with  other  men.  No  one  more 
readily  adopted  the  interests,  sympathized  with  the  affec¬ 
tions,  or  caught  even  the  transient  emotions  of  those  with 
whom  he  associated.  United  to  a  melancholy  tempera¬ 
ment,  this  disposition  would  have  produced  a  moon-struck 
and  sentimental  “  Man  of  Feeling;”  but,  connected  as  it  was 
with  the  most  mercurial  gaiety  of  heart,  the  effect  was  as 


20 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


exhilarating  as  it  was  impressive.  It  was  a  combination 
of  the  deep  emotions,  real  or  pretended,  of  Rousseau,  with 
the  restless  vivacity  of  Voltaire.  Ever  ready  to  weep  with 
those  that  wept,  his  nature  still  more  strongly  prompted 
him  to  rejoice  with  those  that  rejoiced.  A  passionate  lover 
of  society,  he  might  (to  adopt,  with  some  little  qualifica¬ 
tion,  a  well-known  phrase)  have  passed  for  the  brother  of 
every  man,  and  for  the  lover  of  every  woman  with  whom 
he  conversed.  Bayard  himself  could  not  have  accosted  a 
damsel  of  the  houses  of  Longueville  or  Coligni  with  a  more 
heart-felt  and  graceful  reverence,  than  marked  his  address 
to  every  female,  however  homely  or  however  humble. 
The  most  somnolent  company  was  aroused  and  gladdened 
at  his  presence.  The  heaviest  countenance  reflected  some 
animation  from  his  eye;  nor  was  any  one  so  dull  as  not  to 
yield  some  sparks  of  intellect  when  brought  into  communi¬ 
cation  with  him.  Few  men  ever  loved  books  more,  or  read 
them  with  a  more  insatiate  thirst;  yet,  even  in  the  solitude 
of  his  library,  the  social  spirit  never  deserted  him.  The 
one  great  object  of  his  studies  was,  to  explore  the  springs 
of  human  action,  and  to  trace  their  influence  on  the  charac¬ 
ter  and  happiness  of  mankind. 

To  this  vivid  sympathy  in  all  human  interests  and  feel¬ 
ings  were  united  the  talents  by  which  it  could  be  most 
gracefully  exhibited.  Mr.  Wilberforce  possessed  histrionic 
powers  of  the  highest  order.  If  any  caprice  of  fortune  had 
called  him  to  the  stage,  he  would  have  ranked  amongst  its 
highest  ornaments.  lie  would  have  been  irresistible  be¬ 
fore  a  jury,  and  the  most  popular  of  preachers.  Ilis  rich 
mellow  voice,  directed  by  an  ear  of  singular  accuracy, 
gave  to  his  most  familiar  language  a  variety  of  cadence, 
and  to  his  most  serious  discourse  a  depth  of  expression, 
which  rendered  it  impossible  not  to  listen.  Pathos  and 
drollery — solemn  musings  and  playful  fancies — yearnings 
of  the  soul  over  the  tragic,  and  the  most  contagious  mirth 
over  the  ludicrous  events  of  life,  all  rapidly  succeeding  each 
other,  and  harmoniously  because  unconsciously  blended, 
threw  over  his  conversation  a  spell  which  no  prejudice, 
dulness,  or  ill-humour  could  resist.  The  courtesy  of  the 
heart,  and  the  refinement  of  the  most  polished  society, 
united  to  great  natural  courage,  and  a  not  ungraceful  con¬ 
sciousness  of  his  many  titles  to  respect,  completed  the 
charm  which  his  presence  infallibly  exercised. 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILEERFORCE. 


21 


To  these  unrivalled  social  powers  was  added  a  not  less 
remarkable  susceptibility  of  enjoyment,  in  whatever  form 
it  presented  itself.  The  pleasures,  such  as  they  are,  of  a 
very  fastidious  taste,  he  did  not  cultivate.  If  Haydn  was 
not  to  be  had,  a  street  ballad  would  seem  to  shoot  quick¬ 
silver  through  his  frame.  In  the  absence  of  Pitt  or  Canning, 
he  would  delight  himself  in  the  talk  of  the  most  matter  of 
fact  man  of  his  constituents  from  the  Cloth  hall  at  Leeds. 
With  a  keen  perception  of  beauty  and  excellence  in  nature, 
literature,  and  art,  the  alchymy  of  his  happy  frame  extract¬ 
ed  some  delight  from  the  dullest  pamphlet,  the  tamest 
scenery,  and  the  heaviest  speech.  The  curiosity  and  the 
interest  of  childhood,  instead  of  wearing  out  as  he  grew 
older,  seemed  to  be  continually  on  the  increase.  This  pe¬ 
culiarity  is  noticed  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  with  his  ac¬ 
customed  precision  and  delicacy  of  touch,  in  the  following 
words: — ‘Do  you  remember  Madame  de  Maintenon’s  ex¬ 
clamation,  “  Oh  the  misery  of  having  to  amuse  an  old 
king! — qui  n’est  pas  amusable?”  Now,  if  I  was  called 
upon  to  describe  Wilberforce,  I  should  say,  he  was  the 
most  “amusable”  man  I  ever  met  with  in  my  life.  In¬ 
stead  of  having  to  think  what  subjects  will  interest  him, 
it  is  perfectly  impossible  to  hit  on  one  that  does  not  inte¬ 
rest  him.  I  never  saw  any  one  who  touched  life  at  so 
many  points;  and  it  is  the  more  remarkable  in  a  man  who 
is  supposed  to  live  absorbed  in  the  contemplations  of  a  fu¬ 
ture  state.  When  he  was  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he 
seemed  to  have  the  freshest  mind  of  any  man  there.  There 
was  all. the  charm  of  youth  about  him;  and  he  is  quite  as 
remarkable  in  this  bright  evening  of  his  days  as  when  I 
saw  him  in  his  glory  many  years  ago.’ 

Such  a  temperament  combined  with  such  an  education, 
might  have  given  the  assurance  of  a  brilliant  career,  but 
hardly  of  any  enduring  fame.  Ordinary  foresight  might 
have  predicted  that  he  would  be  courted  or  feared  by  the 
two  great  parties  in  the  House  of  Commons;  that  he  would 
be  at  once  the  idol  and  the  idolater  of  society;  and  that  he 
would  shine  in  Parliament  and  in  the  world,  in  the  fore¬ 
most  rank  of  intellectual  voluptuaries.  But  that  he  should 
rise  to  be  amongst  the  most  laborious  and  eminent  benefac¬ 
tors  of  mankind  was  beyond  the  divination  of  any  human 
sagacity.  It  is  to  the  mastery  which  religion  acquired 
over  his  mind  that  this  elevation  is  to  be  ascribed. 


22 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


It  is  not  wonderful  that  many  have  claimed,.  Mr.  Wilber- 
force  as  the  ornament  of  that  particular  section  ol  the 
Christian  Church  which  has  assumed  or  acquired  the  dis¬ 
tinctive  title  of  Evangelical;  nor  that  they  should  resent  as 
injurious  to  their  party  any  more  catholic  view  of  his  real 
character.  That  he  became  the  secular  head  of  this  body 
is  perfectly  true;  but  no  man  was  ever  more  exempt  from 
bondage  to  any  religious  party.  Immutably  attached  to 
the  cardinal  truths  of  revelation,  he  was  in  other  respects 
a  latitudinarian.  “Strange,”  he  would  say,  “that  Chris¬ 
tians  have  taken  as  the  badge  of  separation  the  very  Sacra¬ 
ment  which  their  Redeemer  instituted  as  the  symbol  ol 
their  union.”  And  in  this  spirit,  though  a  strict  conformist 
to  the  Church  of  England,  he  occasionally  attended  the 
public  worship  of  those  who  dissent  from  her  communion, 
and  maintained  a  cordial  fellowship  with  Christians  of  every 
denomination.  The  opinion  may,  indeed,  be  hazarded  that 
he  was  not  profoundly  learned  in  any  branch  of  controver¬ 
sial  theology,  nor  much  qualified  for  success  in  such  stu¬ 
dies.  His  mind  had  been  little  trained  to  systematic 
investigation  either  in  moral  or  physical  science.  Though 
the  practice  of  rhetoric  was  the  business  of  his  mature  life, 
the  study  of  logic  had  not  been  the  occupation  of  his  youth. 
Scepticism  and  suspended  judgment  were  foreign  to  his 
mental  habits.  Perhaps  no  man  ever  examined  more 
anxiously  the  meaning  of  the  sacred  writings,  and  proba¬ 
bly  no  one  ever  more  readily  admitted  their  authority. 
Finding  in  his  own  bosom  ten  thousand  echoes  to  the  doc¬ 
trines  and  precepts  of  the  gospel,  he  wisely  and  gladly  re¬ 
ceived  this  silent  testimony  to  their  truth,  and  gave  them  a 
reverential  admission.  Instead  of  consuming  life  in  a  pro¬ 
tracted  scrutiny  into  the  basis  of  his  belief,  he  busied  him¬ 
self  in  erecting  upon  it  a  superstructure  of  piety  and  of 
virtue.  In  fact,  his  creed  differed  little,  if  at  all,  from  that 
of  the  vast  majority  of  Protestants.  The  difference  be¬ 
tween  him  and  his  fellow  Christians  consisted  chiefly  in 
the  uses  to  which  his  religious  opinions  were  applied.  The 
reflections  which  most  men  habitually  avoid  he  as  habi¬ 
tually  cherished.  It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  of 
him  that  God  was  in  all  his  thoughts.  He  surveyed  human 
life  as  the  eye  of  an  artist  ranges  over  a  landscape,  re¬ 
ceiving  innumerable  intimations  which  escape  any  less  prac¬ 
tised  observer.  In  every  faculty  he  recognised  a  sacred 
trust;  in  every  material  object  an  indication  of  the  divine 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


23 


wisdom  and  goodness;  in  every  human  being  an  heir  of 
immortality;  in  every  enjoyment  a  proof  of  the  divine  be¬ 
nignity;  in  every  affliction  an  act  of  parental  discipline. 
The  early  development  of  this  habit  of  mind  appears  to 
have  been  attended  with  much  dejection  and  protracted 
self-denial;  but  the  gay  and  social  spirit  of  the  man  gra¬ 
dually  resumed  its  dominion.  A  piety  so  profound  was 
never  so  entirely  free  from  asceticism.  It  was  allied  to  all 
the  pursuits,  and  all  the  innocent  pleasures  of  life, — we 
might  almost  say  to  all  its  blameless  whims  and  humours. 
The  frolic  of  earlier  days  had  indeed  subsided,  and  the  in¬ 
destructible  gaiety  of  his  heart  had  assumed  a  more  gentle 
and  cautious  character.  But  with  a  settled  peace  of  mind, 
and  a  self-government  continually  gaining  strength,  he  felt 
that  perfect  freedom  which  enabled  him  to  give  the  reins  to 
his  constitutional  vivacity;  and  the  most  devotional  of  men 
was  at  the  same  time  the  most  playful  and  exhilarating 
companion.  His  presence  was  as  fatal  to  dulness  as  to 
immorality.  His  mirth  was  as  irresistible  as  the  first  laugh¬ 
ter  of  childhood. 

The  sacred  principles  which  he  had  now  adopted  were 
not  sufficient  entirely  to  cure  those  intellectual  defects  to 
which  a  neglected  education  and  the  too  early  enjoyment 
of  wealth  and  leisure  had  given  the  force  of  inveterate  habit. 
His  conversation  was  remarkable  for  interminable  digres¬ 
sions,  and  was  no  inapt  index  of  the  desultory  temper  of 
his'mind.  But  even  this  discursive  temper  was  made  sub¬ 
servient  to  the  great  objects  of  his  life.  It  exhibited  itself 
in  the  rapid  transitions  which  he  was  continually  making 
from  one  scheme  of  benevolence  to  another;  and  in  that 
singular  faculty^  which  he  possessed  of  living  at  once  as  the 
inhabitant  of  the  visible  and  invisible  worlds.  From  the 
shadows  of  earth  to  the  realities  of  man’s  future  destiny  he 
passed  with  a  facility  scarcely  attainable  to  those  who  have 
been  trained  to  more  continuous  habits  of  application.  Be¬ 
tween  the  oratory'  and  the  senate — devotional  exercises  and 
worldly  pursuits — he  had  formed  so  intimate  a  connexion, 
that  the  web  of  his  discourse  was  not  rarely  composed  of 
very  incongruous  materials.  But  this  fusion  of  religious 
with  secular  thoughts  added  to  the  spirit  with  which  every 
duty  was  performed,  and  to  the  zest  with  which  every  enjoy¬ 
ment  was  welcomed;  and  if  the  want  of  good  mental  disci¬ 
pline  was  perceptible  to  the  last,  the  triumph  of  Chris- 


24 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tianity  was  but  the  more  conspicuous  in  that  inflexible 
constancy  of  purpose  with  which  he  pursued  the  great 
works  of  benevolence  to  which  his  life  was  consecrated. 
No  aspirant  for  the  honours  of  literature,  or  for  the  digni¬ 
ties  of  the  Woolsack,  ever  displayed  more  decision  of  cha¬ 
racter  than  marked  his  labours  for  the  Abolition  of  the 
Slave  Trade. 

Some  notice,  however  brief,  of  that  great  event  is  indis¬ 
pensable  in  the  most  rapid  survey  of  the  life  of  Mr,  Wil- 
berforce.  The  aspirations  of  his  school-boy  days  on  this 
subject  have  been  already  noticed.  That  early  impression 
was  deep  and  abiding.  At  the  commencement  of  his  Par¬ 
liamentary  career,  in  1780,  his  inquiries  into  the  system  of 
colonial  slavery  had  led  him  to  conceive  and  to  avow  the 
hope  that  he  should  live  to  redress  the  wrongs  of  the  Negro 
race.  The  direction  of  public  opinion  towards  the  accom¬ 
plishment  of  great  political  objects  is  one  of  those  social 
acfs  which,  during  the  last  half  century,  has  almost  assumed 
the  character  of  a  new  invention.  But  the  contrast  between 
the  magnitude  of  the  design,  and  the  poverty  of  the  re¬ 
sources  at  his  command,  might  have  justified  many  an 
anxious  foreboding,  while,  during  the  following  six  years, 
Mr.  Wilberforce  concerted  plans  for  the  abolition  of  the 
slave  trade  with  James  Ramsay,  the  first  confessor  and 
proto-martyr  of  the  new  faith,  with  Ignatius  Latrobe,  the 
missionary,  in  his  lodging  in  Fetter  Lane,  or  even  with 
Sir  Charles  and  Lady  Middleton,  at  their  mansion  in  Kent. 
Allies  of  greater  apparent  importance  were  afterwards  ob¬ 
tained;  and  it  was  when  seated  with  Mr.  Pitt,  “in  conver¬ 
sation  in  the  open  air,  at  the  root  of  an  old  tree  at  Holwood, 
just  above  the  steep  descent  into  the  valley  of  Keston,”  that 
Mr.  Wilberforce  resolved  “to  give  notice,  on  a  fit  occasion, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  of  his  intention  to  bring  the 
subject  forward.”  The  experience  of  the  next  twenty  years 
was,  however,  to  convince  him  that  it  was  not  from  the  elo¬ 
quent  statesman  who,  for  nearly  the  whole  of  that  period, 
directed  the  Government  of  this  country,  that  effectual  sup¬ 
port  must  be  drawn;  but  from  the  persevering  energy  of 
men  who,  like  Ramsay  and  Latrobe,  could  touch  in  the 
bosoms  of  others  those  sacred  springs  of  action  which  were 
working  in  their  own.  Amongst  such  associates  in  this 
holy  war  are  to  be  mentioned,  with  peculiar  veneration, 
the  names  of  Granville  Sharpe  and  of  Thomas  Clarkson. 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


25 


To  the  former  was  committed  the  presidency  of  the  society 
charged  with  the  duty  of  collecting  and  diffusing  informa¬ 
tion;  while  Mr.  Clarkson  became  the  zealous  and  indefa¬ 
tigable  agent  of  that  body.  To  Mr.  Wilberforce  himself 
was  assigned  the  general  superintendence  of  the  cause, 
both  in  and  out  of  Parliament. 

In  1789,  he  first  proposed  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  in  a  speech  which  Burke  re¬ 
warded  with  one  of  those  imperishable  eulogies  which  he 
alone  had  the  skill  and  the  authority  to  pronounce.  But  a 
victory  over  Guinea  merchants  was  not  to  be  numbered 
amongst  the  triumphs  of  eloquence.  Unable  to  withstand 
the  current  of  popular  feeling  which  the  novelty  as  much 
as  the  nature  of  the  proposal  had  stirred,  they  sagaciously 
resolved  to  await  the  subsidence  of  this  unwonted  enthu¬ 
siasm;  soliciting  only  a  suspension  of  the  measure  until 
Parliament  should  be  in  possession  of  the  facts  which  they 
undertook  to  substantiate.  To  this  Fabian  policy,  ever 
changing  in  its  aspect,  but  uniform  in  its  design,  the  slave 
traders  were  indebted  for  the  prolongation  of  their  guilty 
commerce.  Nearly  two  years  were  worn  away  in  the  ex¬ 
amination  of  their  own  witnesses;  and  when  Mr.  Wilber¬ 
force  had,  with  difficulty,  succeeded  in  transferring  the 
inquiry  from  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  the  less 
dilatory  tribunal  of  a  select  Committee,  he  had  to  struggle 
laboriously  for  permission  to  produce  testimony  in  refutation 
of  the  evidence  of  his  antagonists.  It  was  not,  therefore, 
till  April,  1791,  that  the  question  was  directly  brought  to 
issue;  when  a  proof  was  given  of  the  foresight  with  which 
the  Guinea  merchants  had  calculated  on  the  gradual  subsi¬ 
dence  of  the  public  indignation.  Ominous  were  the  fore¬ 
bodings  with  which  the  friends  of  Mr.  Wilberforce  looked 
forward  to  the  approaching  debate.  By  the  master  of  St. 
John’s  College,  Cambridge,  his  position  was  compared  to 
that  of  “  Episcopius  in  the  infamous  Synod  of  Dort while 
John  Wesley  exhorted  him  to  proceed  to  the  conflict  as  a 
new  “Athanasius  contra  munchim They  had  well  divined 
the  temper  of  the  times.  The  slave  traders  triumphed  by 
an  overwhelming  majority.  In  the  political  tumults  of  those 
days,  the  voice  of  humanity  was  no  longer  audible,  and 
common  sense  had  ceased  to  discharge  its  office.  The 
bad  faith  and  fickleness  of  the  French  Government  had  in¬ 
volved  St.  Domingo  in  confusion  and  bloodshed;  and  be- 
3 


26 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


cause  the  elements  of  society  had  broken  loose  in  that 
colony,  it  was  judged  dangerous  fo  arrest  the  accumulation 
of  the  materials  of  similar  discord  within  our  own!  Even 
Mr.  Pitt  avowed  his  opinion  that  it  was  wise  to  await  more 
tranquil  times  before  the  slave  trade  should  be  abolished. 
It  was  in  vain  that  Mr.  Wilberforce  urged  on  the  House  of 
Commons,  in  1792,  the  true  inference  from  the  calamitous 
state  of  St.  Domingo.  His  measure  for  the  immediate 
abolition  of  the  slave  trade  was  again  defeated.  Those 
were  days  in  which  every  change  was  branded  as  a  revo¬ 
lution — when  the  most  sacred  rules  of  moral  or  political 
conduct,  if  adduced  in  favour  of  any  reform,  were  denounced 
and  abhorred  as  “French  principles.” 

Reason,  however,  having  gradually  regained  her  domi¬ 
nion,  the  procrastinating  system  of  the  slave  traders  assumed 
a  new  shape,  and  obtained,  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Dundas, 
its  most  formidable  advocate.  With  perverse  ingenuity, 
he  proposed  to  substitute  a  gradual  for  an  immediate  aboli¬ 
tion  ;  fixing  a  remote  period  lor  the  entire  cessation  of  the 
trade.  Yet  even  in  this  cautious  form  the  bill  found  a  cold 
reception  in  the  house  of  Peers,  where,  after  consuming 
the  session  in  the  examination  of  two  witnesses,  their  Lord- 
ships  postponed  the  measure  till  the  following  year.  With 
the  arrival  of  that  period,  Mr.  Wilberforce  had  to  sustain 
three  successive  defeats.  The  House  of  Commons  rejected 
first,  the  main  proposal  of  an  immediate  abolition  of  the 
trade;  then,  a  motion  restricting  the  number  of  slaves  to  be 
annually  imported  into  our  own  colonies;  and,  finally,  a 
plan  for  prohibiting  the  employment  of  British  capital  in 
the  introduction  of  slaves  into  foreign  settlements.  His 
perseverance,  however,  was  not  fruitless.  A  deep  impres¬ 
sion  had  been  made  by  his  past  efforts;  and,  in  1794,  the 
House  of  Commons,  for  the  first  time,  passed  a  bill  of  im¬ 
mediate  abolition.  The  defenders  of  the  slave  trade  were 
again  rescued  from  the  impending  blow  by  the  interposition 
of  the  Peers;  amongst  whom  a  melancholy  pre-eminence 
was  thenceforth  to  be  assigned  to  a  member  of  the  Royal 
House,  who  lived  to  redeem  his  early  error,  by  assenting, 
in  the  decline  of  life,  to  the  introduction  of  the  law  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery. 

Thus  far  the  difficulties  of  the  contest  had  chiefly  arisen 
from  the  influence  or  the  arts  of  his  enemies;  but  Mr.  Wil¬ 
berforce  had  now  to  sustain  the  more  depressing  weight  of 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


27 


the  secession  of  one  of  his  most  effective  auxiliaries.  Suf¬ 
fering  under  nervous  debility,  and  influenced  by  other  mo¬ 
tives,  of  which  an  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  his  “  History 
of  the  Abolition  of  the  slave  trade,”  Mr.  Clarkson  was  re¬ 
luctantly  compelled  to  retire  from  the  field.  With  what 
deep  regret  he  abandoned  the  contest  may  be  learnt  from 
his  own  volumes;  and  earnest  as  must  have  been  his  aspi¬ 
ration  for  its  success,  he  was  unable,  during  the  eleven 
years  which  followed,  to  resume  his  place  amidst  the  cham¬ 
pions  of  the  cause,  though  he  lived  to  witness  and  to  share 
in  the  triumph. 

Providence  had  gifted  Mr.  Wilberforce  with  greater  ner¬ 
vous  energy;  and  though  sustaining  labours  not  less  severe, 
and  a  public  responsibility  incomparably  more  anxious  than 
that  under  which  the  health  of  his  colleague  had  given  way, 
he  returned  to  the  conflict  with  unabated  resolution.  In 
1795,  and  in  the  following  year,  he  again  laboured  in  vain 
to  induce  the  House  of  Commons  to  resume  the  ground 
which  they  had  already  taken;  nor  could  his  all-believing 
charity  repress  the  honest  indignation  with  which  he  re¬ 
cords  that  a  body  of  his  supporters,  sufficient  to  have  car¬ 
ried  the  bill,  had  been  enticed  from  their  places  in  the 
House,  by  the  new  opera  of  the  “Two  Hunchbacks,”  in 
which  a  conspicuous  part  was  assigned  to  the  great  vocalist 
of  that  day,  Signior  Portugallo.  A  rivalry  more  formidable 
even  than  that  of  the  Hay-market  had  now  ari-sen.  Paro¬ 
dying  his  father’s  celebrated  maxim,  Mr.  Pitt  was  engaged 
in  conquering  Europe  in  the  West  Indies;  and,  with  the 
acquisition  of  new  colonies,  the  slave  trade  acquired  an  in¬ 
creased  extent,  and  its  supporters  had  obtained  augmented 
Parliamentary  interest.  The  result  was  to  subject  Mr. 
Wilberforce,  in  the  debate  of  1797,  to  a  defeat  more  signal 
than  any  of  those  which  he  had  hitherto  endured.  His 
opponents  eagerly  sei-zed  this  opportunity  to  render  it  irre¬ 
parable.  On  the  motion  of  Mr.  Charles  Ellis,  an  address 
to  the  Crown  was  carried,  which  transferred  to  the  legisla¬ 
tive  bodies  of  the  different  colonies  the  task  of  preparing 
for  the  very  measure  which  they  had  leagued  together  to 
frustrate.  It  was  with  extreme  difficulty,  and  not  without 
the  most  strenuous  remonstrances,  that  Mr.  Wilberforce 
dissuaded  Mr.  Pitt  from  lending  his  support  to  this  extra¬ 
vagant  project.  To  increase  the  value  of  his  Transatlantic 
conquests,  he  had  thrown  open  the  intercourse  between 


28 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


our  colonies  and  those  of  Spain,  and  had  offered,  in  the 
newly  acquired  islands,  fresh  lands,  on  which  the  slave  tra¬ 
ders  might  effect  further  settlements;  and  though,  by  cease¬ 
less  importunity,  Mr.  YVilberforce  obtained  the  revocation 
of  the  first  of  these  measures,  and  the  suspension  of  the 
second,  yet  the  cupidity  of  the  slave  traders,  and  their  in- 
liuence  in  the  national  councils  were  largely  increased  by 
these  new  prospects  of  gain.  Their  augmented  powers 
were  attested  by  the  ill  success  which  attended  Mr.  Wil- 
berforce’s  annual  motions  in  1798  and  1799. 

The  contest  had  now  endured  for  twelve  years.  Ten 
successive  efforts  had  been  fruitlessly  made  to  obtain  the 
concurrence  of  the  Legislature  in  arresting  this  gigantic  evil. 
Hopeless  of  success  by  perseverance  in  the  same  tactics, 
and  yet  incapable  of  retiring  from  the  duty  he  had  assumed, 
Mr.  Wilberf'orce  now  addressed  himself  to  the  project  of 
effecting,  by  a  compromise,  the  end  which  seemed  un¬ 
attainable  by  direct  and  open  hostilities.  The  year  1800 
was  accordingly  consumed  in  negotiations  with  the  chief 
West  India  proprietors,  of  which  the  object  was  to  win 
their  concurrence  in  limiting  the  duration  of  the  trade  to  a 
period  of  five  or  at  most  seven  years.  Delusive  hopes  of 
success  cheered  him  for  awhile,  but  it  was  ere  long1  appa¬ 
rent  that  the  phalanx  of  his  enemies  was  too  firm  to  be 
penetrated.  The  peace  of  Amiens  had  brought  to  the  Court 
of  London  a  minister  from  the  French  Republic,  who  en¬ 
couraged  the  hope  that  it  might  be  possible  to  arrange  a 
general  convention  of  all  the  European  powers  for  the 
abandonment  of  the  traffic.  Long  and  anxious  were  the 
endeavours  made  by  Mr.  Wilberforce  for  maturing  this 
project.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  they  were  unavailing. 
The  season  of  1801  was  about  to  close,  and  the  end  in  view 
appeared  more  distant  than  at  any  former  time.  Mr  Ad¬ 
dington  seems  to  have  regarded  the  great  expedition  to  St. 
Domingo  as  a  kind  of  sedative,  which  would  paralyze  the 
resistance  of  the  oppressed  negroes  throughout  the  West 
Indies;  and  feared  to  check  the  operation  of  this  anodyne. 
The  charm  which  these  medical  analogies  exercised  over 
the  then  occupant  of  the  Treasury  bench  did  not,  however, 
extend  its  influence  to  Mr.  Wilberforce.  He  announced 
his  purpose  to  resume  the  Parliamentary  contest  in  the  year 
1802,  when  the  attempt  was  accordingly  made,  though 
under  the  most  discouraging  circumstances.  The  wit  and 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  W1LBERFORCE. 


29 


eloquence  of  Mr.  Canning,  remonstrating  against  the  set¬ 
tlement  of  new  lands  in  Trinidad,  had  been  repelled  by  the 
passive  resistance  of  the  then  Minister,  and  the  time  occu¬ 
pied  in  this  discussion  had  delayed,  until  the  dissolution  of 
Parliament  interrupted  the  further  progress  of  the  Abolition 
Act.  The  tumult  of  war  in  the  succeeding  year  silenced 
every  other  sound;  and  the  advocate  of  the  slaves  was 
condemned  to  a  reluctant  silence,  whilst  every  voice  was 
raised  in  reprobation  of  Bonaparte,  and  in  resentment  for 
the  insult  offered  to  Lord  Whitworth.  At  length  the  auguries 
of  success  became  distinct  and  frequent.  Mr.  Pitt  had  re¬ 
turned  to  office,  the  dread  of  Jacobinism  no  longer  haunted 
the  public  mind,  but  above  all,  the  proprietors  in  the  Car- 
ribbean  Islands  had  made  the  discovery,  that  by  encou¬ 
raging  the  slave  trade,  they  were  creating  in  the  planters  of 
the  conquered  colonies  the  most  dangerous  rivals  in  their 
monopoly  of  the  British  market.  The  union  with  Ireland 
had  added  a  new  host  of  friends.  Not  a  single  representa¬ 
tive  from  that  country  withheld  his  assistance.  Amidst  all 
these  encouragements,  Mr.  Wilberforce  again  appealed  to 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  carried  the  bill  with  over¬ 
whelming  majorities.  Cordial  were  now  the  congratula¬ 
tions  of  his  friends  of  every  class,  from  the  aged  John 
Newton,  of  St.  Mary  Woolnoth,  to  Jeremy  Bentham,  whose 
celebrity  as  the  most  original  thinker  of  his  age  was  then 
in  its  early  dawn.  But  the  Peers  had  not  yet  yielded  to 
the  influence  of  Christian  or  Moral  Philosophy.  “  The  de¬ 
bate,”  says  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  Diary,  “was  opened  by  the 
Chancellor  in  a  very  threatening  speech,  because  over¬ 
rating  property,  and  full  of  all  moral  blunders.  He  showed 
himself  to  labour  with  feelings  as  if  he  was  the  legitimate 
guardian  of  property — Lord  Stanhope’s  a  wild  speech— 
Lord  Hawkesbury  spoke  honourably  and  handsomely.— 
Westmoreland  like  himself,  coarse  and  bullying,  but  not 
without  talent.  Grenville  spoke  like  a  man  of  high  and 
honourable  principles,  who,  like  a  truly  great  statesman, 
regarded  right  and'politic  as  identical.”  Blunders  and  bul¬ 
lying,  however,  prevailed;  and  the  question  was  adjourned 
to  the  following  session. 

Before  its  arrival  Lord  Brougham,  then  travelling  on 
the  Continent  as  an  American,  and  even  “  venturing  to 
pass  a  week  in  the  same  house  with  several  French  Gene¬ 
rals,”  had  offered  Mr.  Wilberforce  his  assistance  in  pursuing 

3* 


30 


stethen’s  miscellanies. 


various  collateral  inquiries  throughout  Holland  and  Ger¬ 
many,  and  in  “  the  great  scenes  of  bondage  (as  it  is  called) 
Poland,  Russia,  and  Hungary.”  To  this  most  potent  ally 
many  others  were  added.  Mr.  Stephen  and  Mr.  Macaulay 
were  unremitting  in  the  use  of  the  pen  and  the  press.  The 
classical  knowledge  of  Mr.  Robert  Grant  was  put  under  con¬ 
tribution,  to  illustrate  the  state  of  slavery  in  the  ancient  world ; 
and  even  the  daughters  of  Lord  Muncaster  were  enlisted  in 
the  service  of  methodizing  the  contents  of  all  African  tra¬ 
vels,  ancient  and  modern.  High  and  sanguine  as  were 
the  hopes  of  Mr.  Wilberforce,  he  had  yet  another  disap¬ 
pointment  to  sustain.  The  House  of  Commons  of  1805 
receding  from  their  former  resolutions,  rejected  his  bill, 
and  drew  from  him  in  his  private  journals,  language  of  dis¬ 
tress  and  pain  such  as  no  former  defeat  had  been  able  to 
extort. 

The  death  of  Mr.  Pitt  approached;  an  event  which  the 
most  calm  and  impartial  judgment  must  now  regard  as  the 
necessary  precursor  of  the  liberation  of  Africa.  For  se¬ 
venteen  years  since  the  commencement  of  the  contest,  he 
had  guided  the  counsels  of  this  country.  Successful  in  al¬ 
most  every  other  Parliamentary  conflict,  and  triumphing 
over  the  most  formidable  antagonists,  he  had  been  com¬ 
pelled,  by  the  Dundases  and  Jenkinsons,  and  Roses,  who  on 
every  other  subject  quailed  under  his  eye,  to  go  to  the 
grave  without  obliterating  that  which  he  himself  had  de¬ 
nounced  as  the  deepest  stain  on  our  national  character,  and 
the  most  enormous  guilt  recorded  in  the  history  of  man¬ 
kind.  During  that  long  period,  millions  of  innocent  vic¬ 
tims  had  perished.  Had  he  perilled  his  political  existence 
on  the  issue,  no  rational  man  can  doubt  that  an  amount  of 
guilt,  of  misery,  of  disgrace,  and  of  loss,  would  have  been 
spared  to  England  and  to  the  civilized  world,  such  as  no 
other  man  ever  had  it  in  his  power  to  arrest. 

The  political  antagonists  of  Mr.  Pitt  were  men  of  a  dif¬ 
ferent  temper;  and  although  in  the  Cabinet  of  Mr.  Fox 
there  were  not  wanting  those  who  opposed  him  on  this  sub¬ 
ject,  yet  it  was  an  opposition  which,  in  the  full  tide  of  suc¬ 
cess,  he  could  afford  to  disregard  and  to  pardon.  Had  it  en¬ 
dangered  for  a  single  session  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade, 
these  names,  eminent  as  one  at  least  of  them  was,  would 
infallibly  have  been  erased  from  the  list  of  his  Administra¬ 
tion.  Mr.  Fox’s  Ministry  had  scarcely  taken  their  places 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


31 


when  Lord  Grenville  introduced  into  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  speedily  carried  two  bills,  of  which  the  first  abolished 
the  slave  trade  with  all  foreign  powers,  and  the  second  for¬ 
bade  the  employment  in  that  traffic  of  any  British  shipping 
which  had  not  already  been  engaged  in  it;  whilst  the  House 
of  Commons,  resolved  that  the  slave  trade  was  “contrary  to 
the  principles  of  justice,  humanity,  and  sound  policy;  and 
that  they  would  proceed  to  abolish  it  with  all  practicable 
expedition.”  Faithfully  was  this  pledge  redeemed.  The 
death  of  Mr.  Fox  did  not  even  delay  its  fulfilment.  Early 
in  1807  that  great  statesman,  to  whom  at  the  distance 
of  twenty-six  years  it  was  reserved  to  propose  the  abolition 
of  slavery  itself,  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons  a 
bill  which  placed  on  the  British  statute-book  the  final  con¬ 
demnation  of  the  trade  in  slaves.  Amidst  the  acclamations  of 
Parliament,  the  enthusiastic  congratulations  of  his  friends, 
and  the  applauses  of  the  world,  Mr.  YVilberforce  witnessed 
the  success  of  the  great  object  of  his  life  with  emotions,  and 
in  a  spirit,  which  could  not  have  found  admission  into  a  mind 
less  pure  and  elevated  than  his  own.  The  friendly  shouts 
of  victory  which  arose  on  every  side  were  scarcely  ob¬ 
served  or  heeded  in  the  delightful  consciousness  of  having 
rendered  to  mankind  a  service  of  unequalled  magnitude. 
He  retired  to  prostrate  himself  before  the  Giver  of  all  good 
things,  in  profound  humility  and  thankfulness, — wondering 
at  the  unmerited  bounty  of  God,  who  had  carried  him 
through  twenty  years  of  unremitting  labour,  and  bestowed 
on  him  a  name  of  imperishable  glory. 

There  are  those  who  have  disputed  his  title  to  the  sta¬ 
tion  thus  assigned  to  him.  Amongst  the  most  recent  is  to 
be  numbered  one  whose  esteem  is  of  infinitely  too  high  va¬ 
lue  to  be  lightly  disregarded,  and  whose  judgment  will  car¬ 
ry  with  it  no  common  authority.  Mr.  Sergeant  Talfourd, 
in  his  life  of  Charles  Lamb,  referring  to  an  interview  which 
took  place  between  Lamb  and  Mr.  Clarkson,  uses  the  fol¬ 
lowing  expressions: — “There  he  also  met  with  the  true  an- 
nihilator  of  the  slave  trade,  Thomas  Clarkson,  who  was 
then  enjoying  a  necessary  respite  from  his  stupendous 
labours  in  a  cottage  on  the  borders  of  Ulswater.  Lamb  had 
no  taste  for  oratorical  philanthropy,  but  he  felt  the  grandeur 
and  simplicity  of  Clarkson’s  character.” 

The  contrast  which  is  thus  drawn  between  “the  true 
annihilator  of  the  slave  trade,”  and  the  oratorical  philan- 


32 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


thropists  who  declaimed  against  it,  does  not  rest  merely 
on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Talfourd.  The  great  names  of 
Wordsworth  and  Southey,  with  many  minor  writers,  may  be 
quoted  in  support  of  the  same  opinion.  Nay,  Mr.  Clarkson 
lias  claimed  for  himself  a  place  in  the  history  of  this  great 
measure  which  affords  no  light  countenance  to  the  preten¬ 
sions  thus  preferred  in  his  behalf.  In  a  map  prefixed  to 
his  “  History  of  the  Abolition  of  the  Slave  trade,”  that  gi¬ 
gantic  evil  is  represented  under  the  image  of  a  mound 
placed  at  the  confluence  of  four  rivers,  whose  united  force 
is  bearing  it  away.  Of  these  streams  one  takes,  near  its 
source,  the  name  of  Clarkson,  into  which  the  rivulet  of 
Wilberforce  is  seen  to  fall  much  lower  down.  His  sons 
reclaim  against  this  hydrography,  and  propose  to  correct 
the  map  by  converting  the  tributary  flood  into  the  main 
channel.  The  discussion  has,  we  think,  been  inevitably 
forced  upon  them;  but  it  is  one  into  which  we  decline  to 
enter.  It  may  be  sufficient  to  state  what  are  the  positions 
which  the  biographers  of  Mr.  Wilberforce  have  asserted, 
and,  as  we  think,  substantiated.  They  maintain,  then,  that 
his  attention  had  been  directed  to  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade  for  some  time  before  the  subject  had  engaged  Mr. 
Clarkson’s  notice — that  he  had  been  co-operating  with  Mr. 
Pitt  for  the  advancement  of  the  measure  long  before  his  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  Mr.  Clarkson  commenced,  and  for  at  least 
two  years  before  the  period  at  which  Mr.  Clarkson  takes 
to  himself  the  credit  of  having  made  a  convert  of  that  great 
Minister— that  many  of  Mr.  Clarkson’s  exertions  were  un¬ 
dertaken  at  the  instance  and  at  the  expense  of  Mr.  Wilber¬ 
force,  and  conducted  under  his  written  instructions, — and 
that  from  1794  to  1805,  when  the  victory  was  already 
won,  Mr.  Clarkson  did  not  in  fact  participate  at  all  in  any 
of  the  labours  which  were  unceasingly  pursued  by  Mr. 
Wilberforce  during  the  whole  of  that  period.  Thus  far 
there  seems  no  ground  for  dispute.  In  these  volumes  will 
be  found  a  correspondence,  the  publication  of  which  we 
cannot  condemn,  although  we  think  that  nothing  but  the 
filial  duty  of  vindicating  their  father’s  highest  title  to  re¬ 
nown  could  have  justified  his  sons  in  giving  it  to  the  world. 
The  effect  of  it  is  to  show  that  Mr.  Clarkson’s  services  were 
remunerated  by  a  large  subscription;  and  that  his  private 
interests  on  this  occasion  wrere  urged  on  Mr.  Wilberforce 
with  an  importunity  of  which  it  would  be  painful  to  transfer 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


33 


the  record  to  these  pages.  Remembering  the  advanced 
age,  the  eminent  services,  and  the  spotless  character  of  that 
venerable  and  excellent  man,  we  must  be  permitted  to  ex¬ 
press  our  very  deep  regret  that  the  ill-judged  encomiums 
of  his  friends  should  have  contributed  to  the  publication  ot 
any  thing  which  could  for  a  moment  disturb  the  serenity 
of  the  closing  scenes  of  a  life  distinguished,  as  we  believe, 
by  the  exercise  of  every  social  and  domestic  virtue,  and  the 
most  unwearied  beneficence  to  men  of  every  condition  and 
every  country. 

Quitting  the  unwelcome  contrast  thus  forced  upon  us, 
it  is  due  to  the  memory  of  Mr.  Wilberforce  to  state,  that  no 
man  ever  so  little  merited  that  condemnation  which  the 
language  of  Mr.  Talfourd  must  be  supposed  to  convey.  He 
was  indeed  associated  with  those  whose  aid  would  have 
insured  the  triumph  of  energies  incomparably  inferior  to 
his.  To  mention  no  humbler  names,  he  was  aided  by  the 
genius  and  philanthropy  of  Henry  Brougham,  and  by  the 
affection  and  self-denial  and  unexampled  energy  of  his  bro¬ 
ther-in-law  Mr.  Stephen,  and  of  Mr.  Zachary  Macaulay.  It 
may  farther  be  admitted,  that  systematic  and  very  continu¬ 
ous  labours  were  not  consonant  with  his  intellectual  cha¬ 
racter  or  with  the  habits  of  his  life.  But  to  the  office  which 
he  had  undertaken,  he  brought  qualifications  still  more  rare, 
and  of  far  higher  importance.  It  was  within  the  reach  of 
ordinary  talents  to  collect,  to  examine,  and  to  digest  evi¬ 
dence,  and  to  prepare  and  distribute  popular  publications. 
But  it  required  a  mind  as  versatile  and  active,  and  powers 
as  varied  as  were  those  of  Mr.  Wilberforce,  to  harmonize 
all  minds,  to  quicken  the  zeal  of  some,  and  to  repress  the 
intemperance  of  others; — to  negotiate  with  statesmen  of  all 
political  parties,  and,  above  all,  to  maintain  for  twenty 
successive  years  the  lofty  principles  of  the  contest  unsullied 
even  by  the  seeming  admixture  of  any  lower  aims.  The 
political  position  assigned  to  him  by  his  constituency  in 
Yorkshire,  the  multitude  and  intimacy  of  his  personal 
friendships,  the  animal  spirits  which  knew  no  ebb,  the  in¬ 
sinuating  graces  of  his  conversation,  the  graceful  flow  ol 
his  natural  eloquence,  and  an  address  at  once  the  gayest, 
the  most  winning,  and  the  most  affectionate,  marked  him 
out  as  the  single  man  of  his  age,  to  whom  it  would  have 
been  possible  to  conduct  such  a  struggle  through  all  its 
ceaseless  difficulties  and  disappointments.  These  volumes 


34 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


abound  in  proofs  the  most  conclusive  that,  not  merely  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  but  in  every  other  society,  he 
lived  for  this  great  object — that  he  was  the  centre  of  a  vast 
correspondence,  employing  and  directing  innumerable  agents 
— enlisting  in  his  service  the  whole  circle  of  his  connexions, 
surrounded  by  a  body  of  secretaries  (called  by  Mr.  Pitt  his 
“  white  negroes,”)  preparing  or  revising  publications  of 
every  form,  from  folios  of  reports  and  evidence  to  news¬ 
paper  paragraphs — engaged  in  every  collateral  project  by 
which  his  main  end  could  be  promoted — now  superintend¬ 
ing  the  deliberations  of  the  Voluntary  Society  for  the  Abo¬ 
lition  of  the  Slave  Trade, — and  then  labouring  from  ses¬ 
sion  to  session  in  Parliamentary  Committees,  and  occasion¬ 
ally  passing  (in  opposition  to  his  natural  temper)  weeks  of 
the  most  laborious  seclusion,  to  prepare  himself  for  his 
more  public  labours.  A  life  of  more  devoted  diligence  has 
scarcely  been  recorded  of  any  man;  unless,  indeed,  we  are 
to  understand  all  mental  industry  as  confined  to  those  ex¬ 
ertions  which  chain  the  labourer  to  his  desk. 

Though  Mr.  Wilberforce  survived  the  abolition  of  the 
slave  trade  for  more  than  twenty-five  years,  he  did  not  re¬ 
tain  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  much  more  than 
half  of  that  period.  The  interval  between  the  enactment  of 
this  law,  and  the  close  of  his  Parliamentary  labours,  was 
devoted  to  a  ceaseless  watchfulness  over  the  interests  of 
the  African  race.  Our  space  forbids  us  to  pursue  in  any 
detail  the  history  of  those  exertions.  But  it  is  important 
to  notice,  that  although  declining  strength  compelled  him 
to  relinquish  to  others  the  chief  conduct  of  the  warfare 
against  slavery  itself,  his  efforts  for  its  extinction  were  con¬ 
tinued  in  every  form,  until  the  introduction  into  Parliament, 
of  the  law  which  declared,  that  from  the  1st  of  August, 
1834,  “slavery  should  be  utterly,  and  for  ever  abolished, 
and  unlawful  throughout  the  British  colonies,  possessions, 
and  plantations  abroad.”  The  measure  had  already  been 
received  with  acclamation  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
ere  he  was  summoned  to  his  final  reward;  and  it  was  one 
of  the  subjects  of  the  last  conversation  in  which  he  ever 
engaged. 

It  would  have  not  been  compatible  with  the  character  of 
Mr.  Wilberforce,  nor  a  fulfilment  of  the  mission  with  which 
he  believed  himself  to  be  invested,  if  he  had  concentrated 
his  efforts  for  the  good  of  mankind  on  any  single  object, 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFOBCE. 


35 


however  arduous.  “  God  has  set  before  me  the  reforma¬ 
tion  of  my  country’s  manners,”  is  the  solemn  persuasion 
which  he  recorded  in  his  twenty-seventh  year,  and  from 
which,  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life,  he  never  swerved.  Du¬ 
ring-  that  period  Great  Britain  underwent  internal  changes 
more  important  than  had  occurred  during  any  two  pre¬ 
ceding  centuries.  Agriculture,  commerce,  manufactures,  re¬ 
venue,  and  population  expanded  with  unexampled  elasticity. 
Never  before  had  the  physical  powers  of  nature  been  so 
largely  subjugated  to  the  physical  wants  of  mankind,  and 
never  was  the  necessity  more  urgent  for  some  corresponding 
increase  of  the  moral  powers  of  the  conqueror.  The 
steam-engine  would  have  been  a  curse  rather  than  a  bless¬ 
ing,  if  the  age  which  it  has  enriched  had  continued  sta¬ 
tionary  in  religious  and  intellectual  improvement.  Watt 
and  Arkwright  would  have  been  but  equivocal  benefactors 
of  their  fellow-countrymen  without  the  co-operation  of  Bell 
and  Lancaster.  England  would  have  used  like  a  giant  the 
giant’s  strength  which  she  was  acquiring.  Wealth  and 
sensuality,  hard-heartedness,  on  the  one  side,  must  have 
been  brought  into  a  fearful  conflict  with  poverty,  ignorance, 
and  discontent,  on  the  other.  But  the  result  has  been 
otherwise,  and  these  islands  have  become  not  merely  the 
hive  of  productive  industry,  but  the  centre  of  efforts  of  un¬ 
equalled  magnitude  to  advance  the  highest  interests  of  the 
human  race.  If  in  elevating  the  moral  and  religious  cha¬ 
racter  of  our  people  during  the  last  century,  the  first  place 
be  due  to  the  illustrious  founder  of  methodism,  the  second 
may  be  justly  claimed  for  Mr.  Wilberforce.  No  two  men 
can  be  named  who  in  their  respective  generations  exer¬ 
cised  an  influence  so  extensive,  permanent,  and  beneficial 
over  public  opinion.  In  walks  of  life  the  most  dissimilar, 
and  by  means  widely  different,  they  concurred  in  pro¬ 
posing  to  themselves  the  same  great  end,  and  pursued  it  in 
the  same  spirit.  Their  views  of  Christian  doctrine  scarce¬ 
ly  differed.  They  inculcated  the  same  severe,  though  af¬ 
fectionate,  morality;  and  were  animated  by  the  same  holy 
principles,  fervent  zeal,  and  constitutional  hilarity  of  tem¬ 
per.  No  one  who  believes  that  the  courses  of  the  world 
are  guided  by  a  supreme  and  benevolent  intelligence,  will 
hesitate  to  admit,  that  each  of  these  men  was  appointed  by 
Providence  to  execute  a  high  and  sacred  trust,  and  pre¬ 
pared  for  its  discharge  by  those  gifts  of  nature  and  fortune 


36 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


which  the  circumstances  of  their  times  peculiarly  demand¬ 
ed.  The  career  of  Wesley  has  been  celebrated  by  the  ge¬ 
nerous  enthusiasm  of  his  disciples,  and  the  colder,  though 
more  discriminating  admiration  of  Southey.  In  these  vo¬ 
lumes  is  to  be  found  a  record  not  less  impressive  of  the  la¬ 
bours  of  Mr.  Wilberforce  toexaltand  purify  the  national  cha¬ 
racter.  Amongst  the  innumerable  schemes  of  benevolence 
which  were  projected  during  the  last  half  century,  there  is 
scarcely  one  of  the  more  considerable  in  which  he  does 
not  appear  to  have  largely  participated.  Now  establishing 
schools  for  pupils  of  every  age,  and  Christians  of  all  de¬ 
nominations,  and  then  engaged  in  plans  for  the  circulation 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  the  diffusion  of  Christian  knowledge. 
The  half-civilized  inhabitants  of  the  recesses  of  London, 
the  prisoners  in  her  jails,  the  sick  and  destitute  in  their 
crowded  lodgings,  the  poor  of  Ireland,  the  heathen  nations 
refined  or  barbarous,  the  convicts  in  New  Holland,  and 
the  Indians  on  the  Red  River,  all  in  their  turn,  or  rather  all 
at  once,  were  occupying  his  mind,  exhausting  his  purse, 
and  engaging  his  time  and  influence  for  schemes  for  their 
relief  or  improvement.  The  mere  enumeration  of  the 
plans  in  which  he  was  immersed,  and  of  the  societies 
formed  for  their  accomplishment,  presents  such  a  mass  and 
multitude  of  complicated  affairs,  as  inevitably  tosuggest  the 
conclusion  that  no  one  man,  nor  indeed  any  hundred  men, 
could  conduct  or  understand,  or  remember,  them  all.  There 
is,  however,  no  miracle  to  explain.  Living  in  the  centre 
of  political  action,  and  surrounded  by  innumerable  friends, 
agents,  and  supporters,  Mr.  Wilberforce  was  relieved  from 
all  the  more  toilsome  duties  of  these  countless  underta¬ 
kings.  He  may  be  said  to  have  constituted  himself,  and  to 
have  been  acknowledged,  by  others,  as  a  voluntary  minis¬ 
ter  of  public  instruction  and  public  charities.  No  depart¬ 
ment  in  Downing  street  was  ever  administered  with  equal 
success; — none  certainly  by  agents  equally  zealous,  perse¬ 
vering,  and  effective.  His  authority  was  maintained  by 
the  reverence  and  affection  of  his  fellow  labourers,  and  by 
the  wisdom  of  his  counsels,  his  unfailing  bounty,  and  his 
ever  ready  and  affectionate  sympathy. 

No  man  was  less  liable  to  the  imputation  of  withdrawing 
from  costly  personal  sacrifices  to  promote  those  schemes  of 
philanthropy  which  the  world,  or  at  least  his  own  world, 
would  admire  and  celebrate.  During  a  large  part  of  his 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


37 


life,  Mr.  Wilberforce  appears  to  have  devoted  to  acts  of  mu¬ 
nificence  and  charity,  from  a  fourth  to  a  third  of  his  annual 
income;  nor  did  he  shrink  from  the  humblest  and  most  re¬ 
pulsive  offices  of  kindness  to  the  sick  and  the  wretched 
with  whom  he  was  brought  into  contact.  Yet  we  believe 
that  no  more  genuine  proof  was  ever  given  of  his  anxiety 
for  the  highest  interests  of  mankind  than  in  the  publication 
of  his  “  Practical  View  of  the  Prevailing  Religious  System 
of  Professed  Christians  in  the  Higher  and  Middle  Classes 
of  this  Country,  contrasted  with  real  Christianity.”  This 
book  appeared  in  1797.  The  interest  with  which  it  was 
originally  received  might  be  readily  explained  by  the  sin¬ 
gularity  of  a  very  conspicuous  member  of  Parliament  un¬ 
dertaking  to  handle  such  a  theme.  But  there  must  be  some 
deeper  cause  for  the  continued  popularity  of  an  octavo  vo¬ 
lume,  of  which,  within  half  a  century,  fifty  large  editions, 
at  the  least,  have  been  published  in  England  and  in  the 
United  States.  The  applauses  of  ecclesiastics  of  every 
class,  from  old  John  Newton  to  the  then  Bishop  of  London, 
might  be  yielded  with  liberal  indulgence  to  so  powerful 
and  unexpected  an  auxiliary.  But  that  could  be  no  com¬ 
mon  production  which  moved  the  author  of  the  “Pursuits 
of  Literature  ”  for  once  to  quit  his  stilts,  and  to  pour  out  a 
heartfelt  tribute  of  praise  in  his  unadulterated  mother 
tongue;  and  which  drew  from  Edmund  Burke  his  grateful 
acknowledgments  to  the  author  for  the  comfort  which  he 
had  diffused  over  the  two  last  days  of  his  eventful  life. 

Yet  they  who  shall  search  this  book  for  deep  theology, 
or  profound  investigation,  will  be  disappointed.  “  Philoso¬ 
phy,”  says  Abraham  Tucker,  “  may  yet  be  styled  the  art  of 
marshalling  the  ideas  in  the  understanding,  and  religion 
that  of  disciplining  the  imagination.”  In  the  first  of  these 
arts  Mr.  Wilberforce  did  not  excej;  in  the  second  he  has 
scarcely  ever  been  surpassed.  The  first  three  chapters  of  this 
work  appear  to  us  decidedly  inferior  to  the  rest.  He  is  there 
ppon  adebateable  land, — contrasting  the  inspired  text  with 
the  prevalent  opinions  of  his  age  on  some  parts  of  Christian 
doctrine.  The  accuracy  of  his  own  interpretations,  or  rather 
of  those  which  are  received  by  that  part  of  the  Church  of 
England  usually  designated  as  Evangelical,  being  assumed 
throughout  these  discussions,  they  will  scarcely  convince 
such  as  read  the  New  Testament  in  a  different  sense.  But 
when  he  emerges  from  these  defiles,  and  enters  upon  broad-j 
4 


38 


STEPHEN^  MISCELLANIES. 


or  grounds,  comparing  the  precepts  of  revelation  with  the 
conventional  morality  of  the  world’s  favoured  children,  he 
speaks  (for  it  is  throughout  a  spoken  rather  than  a  written 
style)  with  a  persuasive  energy  which  breathes  the  very 
spirit  of  the  inspired  volume.  Here  all  is  the  mature  re¬ 
sult  of  profound  meditation;  and  his  thoughts,  if  not  always 
methodical  and  compact,  are  at  least  always  poured  out  in 
language  so  earnest  and  affectionate,  that  philanthropy  never 
yet  assumed  a  more  appropriate,  or  a  more  eloquent  style, 
it  is  the  expostulation  of  a  brother.  Unwelcome  truth  is 
delivered  with  scrupulous  fidelity,  and  yet  with  a  tenderness 
which  demonstrates  that  the  monitor  feels  the  pain  which 
he  reluctantly  inflicts.  It  is  this  tone  of  human  sympathy 
breathing  in  every  page  which  constitutes  the  essential 
charm  of  this  book;  and  it  is  to  the  honour  of  our  common 
nature  that  we  are  all  disposed  to  love  best  that  teacher, 
who,  with  the  deepest  compassion  for  our  sorrows,  has  the 
least  indulgence  for  the  errors  or  the  faults  by  which  they 
have  been  occasioned.  Whatever  objections  may  have 
been  raised  to  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  theological  opinions,  there 
is  but  one  which  can  be  stated  to  the  exegelical  part  of  his 
treatise.  It  is,  that  he  has  erected  a  standard  too  pure  and 
too  sublime  for  this  world’s  use,  and  proposes  a  scheme  of 
Utopian  perfection  which  is  calculated,  by  discouraging 
hope,  to  repress  exertion.  The  obvious  answer  is,  that  the 
design  of  every  rule  which  can  be  given  for  the  conduct  of 
life  is  to  afford  an  accurate  measure  of  our  deflection  from 
the  path  of  duty,  and  a  trust-worthy  guide  for  our  return. 
Any  system  of  religion  or  ethics  which  tolerated  the  slight¬ 
est  compromise  with  moral  evil,  would  be  so  far  subver¬ 
sive  of  its  own  purpose;  although  it  is  from  the  general 
prevalence  of  moral  evil  that  such  systems  derive  their  ex¬ 
istence  and  their  value.  -  To  mark  distinctly  the  departure 
of  the  luxurious,  busy,  care-worn,  and  ambitious  age  to 
which  we  belong,  from  the  theory  and  practice  of  Christian 
morality,  was  the  task  which  Mr.  Wilberforce  proposed 
to  himself.  Never  were  the  sensuality,  the  gloom,  and 
the  selfishness  which  fester  below  the  polished  surface  of 
society,  brought  into  more  vivid  contrast  with  the  faith, 
and  hope,  and  charity,  which  in  their  combination  form 
the  Christian  character;  and  never  was  that  contrast  drawn 
with  a  firmer  hand,  with  a  more  tender  spirit,  or  with  a 
purer  inspiration  for  the  happiness  of  mankind. 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


39 


To  all  these  philanthropic  labours  were  added  others,  ad¬ 
dressed,  though  less  directly,  to  the  same  ends,  and  under¬ 
taken  and  pursued  in  a  similar  spirit.  In  his  political  ca¬ 
reer,  Mr.  Wilberforce  never  ceased  to  aet  and  to  speak  as 
one  to  whom  Providence  had  confided  the  sacred  trust  of 
advancing  the  moral  character,  and  promoting  the  welfare 
of  the  age  and  nation  to  which  he  belonged.  As  a  public 
speaker,  he  enjoyed  great  and  well-merited  celebrity.  But 
it  was  not  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  his  powers  in 
this  kind  were  exhibited  to  the  greatest  advantage.  In 
all  the  deliberations  of  Parliament  may  be  discerned  a  tacit 
reference  to  the  nature  of  Royal  citation  which  has  brought 
together  the  two  Houses  “  for  the  despatch  of  divers  weighty 
and  urgent  affairs.”  The  knights  and  burgesses  are  em¬ 
phatically  men  of  business,  and  have  but  little  indulgence  for 
anything  which  tasks  the  understanding,  addresses  itself  to 
the  heart,  or  elevates  the  imagination; — least  of  all  for  an  os¬ 
tentatious  display  of  the  resources  of  the  speaker’s  mind.  He 
who  can  contribute  a  pertinent  fact,  or  a  weighty  argument, 
need  not  raise  his  style  above  the  region  of  the  pathos.  The 
aspirant  for  fame  must  excel  in  perspicuity  of  statement,  in 
promptitude  in  the  exposure  or  invention  of  sophistry,  and 
in  a  ready  though  abstemious  use  of  wit,  ridicule,  and  sar¬ 
casm.  In  these  requisites  for  success  Mr.  Wilberforce  was 
deficient.  He  had  not  much  Statistical  knowledge,  nor 
was  he  familiar  with  any  branch  of  Political  Economy. 
His  argumentation  was  not  usually  perspicuous,  and  was 
seldom  energetic.  The  habit  of  digression,  the  parentheti¬ 
cal  structure  of  his  periods,  and  the  minute  qualifications 
suggested  by  his  reverence  for  truth,  impeded  the  liow  of 
his  discourse,  and  frequently  obscured  its  design.  His  ex¬ 
quisite  perception  of  the  ridiculous  kept  him  in  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  habitual  self-denial,  and,  the  satire  which  played 
upon  his  countenance  was  suppressed  by  his  universal 
charity,  before  it  could  form  itself  into  language.  With 
these  disadvantages  he  was  still  a  great  Parliamentary 
speaker;  and  there  were  occasions  when,  borne  by  some 
sudden  impulse,  or  carried  by  diligent  preparation  over 
the  diffuseness  which  usually  encumbered  him,  he  delight¬ 
ed  and  subdued  his  hearers.  His  reputation  in  the  House 
of  Commons  rested,  however,  chiefly  upon  other  grounds. 
In  that  assembly,  any  one  speaks  with  immense  advantage 
whose  character,  station,  or  presumed  knowledge  is  such  as 


40 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


to  give  importance  to  his  opinions.  The  dogmas  of  some 
men  are  of  incomparably  more  value  than  the  logic  of  others; 
and  no  member  except  the  leaders  of  the  great  contending 
parties,  addressed  the  House  with  an  authority  equal  to 
that  of  Mr.  Wilberforce.  The  homage  rendered  to  his  per¬ 
sonal  character,  his  command  over  a  small  compact  party, 
his  representation  of  the  county  of  York,  the  confidence  of 
the  great  religious  bodies  in  every  part  of  England,  and, 
above  all,  his  independent  neutrality,  gave  to  his  suffrage, 
an  almost  unexampled  value.  It  was  usually  delivered  with 
a  demeanour  of  conscious  dignity,  unalloyed  by  the  slight¬ 
est  tinge  of  arrogance,  and  contrasting  oddly  enough  with 
the  insignificance  of  his  slight  and  shapeless  person.  Yet 
the  spell  he  exercised  was  partly  drawn  from  still  another 
source.  Parliamentary  eloquence  is  essentially  colloquial; 
and,  when  most  embellished  or  sustained,  is  rather  pro¬ 
longed  discourse  than  oratory  properly  so  called.  It  was  by 
a  constant,  perhaps  an  unavoidable  observance  of  his  tone, 
that  Mr.  Wilberforce  exercised  the  charm  which  none  could 
resist,  but  which  many  were  unable  to  explain.  His 
speeches  in  the  House  of  Commons  bore  the  closest  re¬ 
semblance  to  his  familiar  conversation.  There  was  the 
same  earnest  sincerity  of  manner,  the  same  natural  and  va¬ 
ried  cadences,  the  same  animation  and  ease,  and  the  same 
tone  of  polished  society;  and  while  his  affectionate,  lively, 
and  graceful  talk  flowed  on  without  the  slightest  appearance 
of  effort  or  study,  criticism  itself  scarcely  perceived,  or  at 
least  excused  the  redundancy  of  his  language. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  it  was  not  in  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons,  that  his  powers  as  a  public  speaker  had  their  high¬ 
est  exercise.  His  habitual  trains  of  thought,  and  the 
feelings  which  he  most  deeply  cherished,  could  rarely  find 
utterance  in  that  scene  of  strife  and  turmoil.  At  the  hus¬ 
tings,  where  the  occasion  justified  the  use  of  a  more  didactic 
style,  there  was  much  simple  majesty  in  the  uncompromi¬ 
sing  avowal  of  his  principles,  and  in  the  admonitions  sug¬ 
gested  by  them.  It  was  the  grave  eloquence  of  the  pulpit 
applied  to  secular  uses.  But  it  was  in  the  great  assemblages 
held  for  religious  and  charitable  objects  that  the  current  of 
his  eloquence  moved  with  the  greatest  impetus  and  volume. 
Here  he  at  once  felt  his  way  to  the  hearts  of  the  dense 
mass  of  eager  and  delighted  listeners.  In  the  fulness  of 
the  charity  which  believeth  all  things,  giving  credit  to  the 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


41 


multitude  for  feelings  as  pure  and  benevolent  as  his  own, 
he  possessed  the  power  of  gracefully  and  decorously  laying 
aside  the  reserve  vvhieh  habitually  shrouded  from  the  irre¬ 
verent  and  profane  the  more  secret  and  cherished  feelings 
of  his  heart.  Nothing  was  ever  more  singular,  or  less 
framed  upon  any  previous  model  of  eloquence,  than  were 
some  of  those  addresses  in  which  the  chastened  style  of 
the  House  of  Commons  (of  all  assemblies  the  most  fasti¬ 
dious)  was  employed  to  give  utterance  to  thoughts  which, 
though  best  becoming  the  deepest  solitude,  retained,  even 
in  these  crowded  scenes,  their  delicacy  not  less  than  their 
beauty.  The  most  ardent  of  his  expressions  bore  the  im¬ 
press  of  indubitable  sincerity,  and  of  calm  and  sober  con¬ 
viction;  instantly  distinguishing  them  from  the  less  genuine 
enthusiasm  of  others  who  dissolved  their  meaning  in  ecstasy, 
and  soared  beyond  the  reach  of  human  comprehension  into 
the  third  heavens  of  artificial  rapture.  It  was  an  example 
perhaps  as  full  of  danger  as  of  interest;  and  not  a  few  are 
the  offensive  imitations  which  have  been  attempted  of  a 
model  which  could  be  followed  successfully,  or  even  inno¬ 
cently,  by  none  whose  bosoms  did  not  really  burn  with 
the  same  heavenly  affections,  who  did  not  practise  the 
same  severe  observance  of  truth,  or  whose  taste  had  not 
been  refined  to  the  same  degree  of  sensibility. 

No  part  of  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  biography  will  be  read 
with  greater  interest  than  that  which  describes  his  political 
career.  Holding  for  forty-three  years  a  conspicuous  place 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  current  of  public  affairs  as 
it  flowed  past  him,  reflected  his  character  in  a  thousand 
different  forms;  and  exhibited  on  the  most  tumultuous 
theatre  of  action,  the  influence  of  those  sacred  principles, 
with  the  workings  of  which  we  are  for  the  most  part  con¬ 
versant  only  in  more  quiet  and  secluded  scenes. 

“  From  any  one  truth  all  truth  may  be  inferred,” — a  Ba¬ 
conian  text,  from  which  certain  commentators  of  the  last 
century  concluded,  that  he  who  possessed  a  Bible  might 
dispense  with  Grotius  and  with  Locke;  and  that  at  the  ap¬ 
proach  of  the  Scriptures  all  other  writings  should  disap¬ 
pear,  as  they  had  once  vanished  at  the  presence  of  the 
Koran.  The  opinion  which  precisely  reverses  this  doc¬ 
trine  is  recommended  by  less  ingenuity,  and  by  no  better 
logic.  Mr.  Wilberforce  was  far  too  wise  a  man  to  ima¬ 
gine  that  any  revelation  from  God  could  be  designed  to 

4* 


42 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


supersede  the  duty  of  patient  research  into  all  other  sources 
of  knowledge.  But  neither  did  he  ever  reject  the  vast  body 
of  ethical  precepts  delivered  by  Divine  inspiration,  as  irre¬ 
levant  to  the  political  questions  with  which  he  was  daily 
conversant,  lie  invariably  brought  every  conclusion  drawn 
from  other  studies  to  the  test  of  their  consistency  with  the 
sacred  oracles.  They  supplied  him  with  an  ordinate  by 
which  to  measure  every  curve.  They  gave  him  what  most 
public  men  egregiously  want, — the  firm  hold  of  a  body  of 
unchanging  opinions.  In  his  case  this  advantage  was  pecu¬ 
liarly  momentous.  His  neglected  education,  his  inaptitude 
for  severe  and  continuous  mental  labour,  the  strength  of 
his  sympathies,  and  his  strong  personal  attachment  to  Mr. 
Pitt,  all  seemed  to  give  the  promise  of  a  ductile,  vacillating, 
uncertain  course.  Yet  in  reality  no  man  ever  pursued  in 
Parliament  a  career  more  entirely  guided  by  fixed  princi¬ 
ples,  or  more  frequently  at  variance  with  his  habitual  in¬ 
clinations.  His  connexions,  both  public  and  private,  not 
less  than  his  natural  temper,  disposed  him  to  that  line  of 
policy  which,  in  our  days,  assumes  the  title  of  “  conser¬ 
vative:”  yet  his  conduct  was  almost  invariably  such  as  is 
now  distinguished  by  the  epithets  “  liberal  and  reforming.” 
A  Tory  by  predilection,  he  was  in  action  a  Whig.  His 
heart  was  with  Mr,  Pitt;  but  on  all  the  cardinal  questions 
of  the  times,  his  vote  was  given  to  Mr.  Fox. 

This  conflict  of  sentiment  with  principle  did  not,  how¬ 
ever,  commence  in  the  earlier  days  of  Mr.  Pitt’s  adminis¬ 
tration;  for  the  mortal  foe  of  Jacobinism  entered  the  House 
of  Commons,  as  a  Parliamentary  reformer;  and  Mr.  Wil- 
berforce  executed  a  rapid  journey  from  Nice  to  London  in 
the  winter  of  1784  to  support,  by  his  eloquence  and  his 
vote,  the  Reform  Bill  which  his  friend  introduced  in  the 
session  of  that  year.  The  following  broken  sentences 
from  his  diary  record  the  result:  “  At  Pitt’s  all  day — it 
goes  on  well — sat  up  late  chatting  with  Pitt — his  hopes  of 
the  country  and  noble  patriotic  heart — to  town — Pitt’s — 
houses — Parliamentary  reform — terribly  disappointed  and 
beat — extremely  fatigued — spoke  extremely  ill,  but  com¬ 
mended — called  at  Pitt’s — met  poor  Wyvill.”  Of  this  “  ill- 
spoken  but  commended  speech,”  the  following  sentence  is 
preserved:  “  The  consequence  of  this  measure,”  he  said, 
“  will  be  that  the  freedom  of  opinion  will  be  restored,  and 
party  connexions  in  a  great  measure  vanish,  for  party  on 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


43 


one  side  begets  party  on  the  other;” — a  prophecy  which, 
rightly  understood,  is  perceptibly  advancing  towards  its 
fulfilment.  The  ill  success  of  Mr.  Pitt’s  proposal  did  not 
damp  the  zeal  of  Mr.  Wil'oerforce.  He  introduced  into  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  even  succeeded  in  carrying  there 
two  of  the  most  important  enactments  of  the  Reform  Bill, 
in  which,  at  the  distance  of  nearly  half  a  century,  Lord 
Grey  obtained  the  reluctant  concurrence  of  the  Peers. 
One  of  these  measures  provided  for  a  general  registration 
of  voters;  the  others  for  holding  the  poll,  at  the  same  time, 
in  several  different  parts  of  the  same  county. 

From  the  commencement  of  the  war  with  France  is  to 
be  dated  the  dissolution  of  the  political  alliance  which  had, 
till  then,  been  maintained  with  little  interruption  between 
Mr.  Wilberforce  and  Mr.  Pitt.  Partaking  more  deeply 
than  most  men  of  the  prevalent  abhorrence  of  the  revolu¬ 
tionary  doctrines  of  that  day,  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  resistance 
to  the  war  was  decided  and  persevering.  A  written  mes¬ 
sage  from  Mr.  Pitt,  delivered  on  the  first  debate  on  that 
question,  “assuring  him  that  his  speaking  then  might  do 
irreparable  mischief,  and  promising  that  he  should  have 
another  opportunity  before  war  should  be  declared,”  de¬ 
feated  his  purpose  of  protesting  publicly  against  the  ap¬ 
proaching  hostilities.  Accident  prevented  the  redemption 
of  the  pledge,  but  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  purposes  remained 
unshaken.  “  Our  Government,”  he  says  in  a  letter  on  this 
subject,  “had  been  for  some  months  before  the  breaking 
out  of  the  war,  negotiating  with  the  principal  European 
powers,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  joint  representation 
to  France,  assuring  her  that  if  she  would  formally  engage 
to  keep  within  her  limits,  and  not  molest  her  neighbours, 
she  should  be  suffered  to  settle  her  own  internal  govern¬ 
ment  and  constitution  without  interference.  I  never  w'as 
so  earnest  with  Mr.  Pitt  on  any  other  occasion  as  I  was  in 
my  entreaties  before  the  war  broke  out,  that  he  would 
openly  declare  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  he  had  been, 
and  then  was  negotiating  this  treaty,  I  urged  on  him  that 
the  declaration  might  possibly  produce  an  immediate  effect 
in  France,  where  it  was  manifest  there  prevailed  an  opinion 
that  we  were  meditating  some  interference  with  their  in¬ 
ternal  affairs,  and  the  restoration  of  Louis  to  his  throne. 
At  all  events,  I  hoped  that  in  the  first  lucid  interval,  France 
would  see  how  little  reason  there  was  for  continuing  the 


44 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


war  with  Great  Britain;  and,  at  least,  the  declaration  must 
silence  all  but  the  most  determined  oppositionists  in  this 
country.  How  far  this  expectation  would  have  been  realized 
you  may  estimate  by  Mr.  Fox’s  language  when  Mr.  Pitt, 
at  my  instance,  did  make  the  declaration  last  winter  (1799.) 
‘  If,’  he  said,  *  the  Right  Honourable  Gentleman  had  made 
the  declaration  now  delivered,  to  France,  as  well  as  to 
Russia,  Austria,  and  Prussia,  I  should  have  nothing  more 
to  say  or  to  desire.’  ” 

Experience  and  reflection  confirmed  these  original  im¬ 
pressions.  After  the  war  had  continued  “  for  a  year,  Mr. 
Wilberforce  was  engaged  in  making  up  his  mind  cautious¬ 
ly  and  maturely,  and,  therefore,  slowly  as  to  the  best  con¬ 
duct  to  be  observed  by  Great  Britain  in  the  present  critical 
emergency.  With  what  a  severe  self-examination  he  was 
accustomed  to  conduct  these  inquiries,  may  be  learnt  from 
an  entry  made  at  that  period  in  his  private  journal.  “It 
is  a  proof  to  me  of  my  secret  ambition,  that  though  I  fore¬ 
see  how  much  I  shall  suffer  in  my  feelings  throughout 
from  differing  from  Pitt,  and  how  indifferent  a  figure  I 
shall  most  likely  make,  yet  that  motives  of  ambition  will 
insinuate  themselves.  Give  me,  O  Lord,  a  true  sense  of 
the  comparative  value  of  earthly  and  of  heavenly  things; 
this  will  render  me  sober-minded,  and  fix  my  affections  on 
things  above.” 

Such  was  the  solemn  preparation  with  which  he  ap¬ 
proached  this  momentous  question,  and  moved  in  the  ses¬ 
sion  of  1794  an  amendment  to  the  address  recommending 
a  more  pacific  policy.  The  failure  of  that  attempt  did  not 
shake  his  purpose;  for  after  the  interval  of  a  few  days  he 
voted  with  Mr.  Grey  on  a  direct  motion  for  the  re-esta¬ 
blishment  of  peace.  The  genuine  self-denial  with  which 
this  submission  to  a  clear  sense  of  duty  was  attended,  Mr. 
Wilberforce  has  thus  touchingly  described.  “  No  one  who 
has  not  seen  a  good  deal  of  public  life,  and  felt  how  diffi¬ 
cult  and  painful  it  is  to  differ  widely  from  those  with  whom 
you  wish  to  agree,  can  judge  at  what  an  expense  of  feeling 
such  duties  are  performed.  Wednesday,  February  4,  dined 
at  Lord  Camden’s.  Pepper,  and  Lady  Arden,  Steele,  &c. 
I  felt  queer,  and  all  day  out  of  spirits — wrong!  but  hurt  by 
the  idea  of  Pitt’s  alienation — 12th,  party  of  the  old  firm  at 
the  Speaker’s;  I  not  there.” 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


45 


Mr.  Pitt’s  alienation  was  not  the  only,  nor  the  most  se¬ 
vere  penalty  which  Mr.  Wilberforce  had  to  pay  on  this  oc¬ 
casion.  The  sarcasms  of  Windham, — the  ironical  compli¬ 
ments  of  Burke, — a  cold  reception  from  the  King, — and 
even  Fox’s  congratulation  upon  his  approaching  alliance 
with  the  opposition,  might  have  been  endured.  But  it  was 
more  hard  to  bear  the  rebukes,  however  tenderly  conveyed, 
of  his  friend  and  early  guide,  the  Dean  of  Carlisle;  the  re¬ 
proaches  of  the  whole  body  of  his  clerical  allies  for  the 
countenance  which  they  conceived  him  to  have  given  to 
the  enemies  of  religion  and  of  order;  and  the  earnest  re¬ 
monstrances  of  many  of  his  most  powerful  supporters  in 
Yorkshire.  The  temper  so  accessible  to  all  kindly  influ¬ 
ences  was,  however,  sustained  by  the  invigorating  voice 
of  an  approving  conscience.  He  resumed  his  pacific  pro¬ 
posals  in  the  spring  of  1795,  and  though  still  defeated,  it 
was  by  a  decreasing  majority.  Before  the  close  of  that 
year,  Mr.  Pitt  himself  had  become  a  convert  to  the  opi¬ 
nions  of  his  friend.  The  war  had  ceased  to  be  popular, 
and  Lord  Malmesbury’s  negotiation  followed.  The  failure 
of  that  attempt  at  length  convinced  Mr.  Wilberforce  that 
the  war  was  inevitable;  and  thenceforward  his  opposition  to 
it  ceased. 

The  same  independent  spirit  raised  him,  on  less  momen¬ 
tous  occasions,  above  the  influence  of  the  admiration  and 
strong  personal  attachment  which  he  never  withheld  from 
Mr.  Pitt  at  any  period  of  their  lives.  Though  the  Minister 
was  “  furious  ”  on  the  occasion,  he  voted  and  spoke  against 
the  motion  for  augmenting  the  income  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales.  Though  fully  anticipating  the  ridicule  which  was 
the  immediate  consequence  of  the  attempt,  he  moved  the 
House  of  Commons  to  interfere  for  the  liberation  of  Lafay- 
ette,  when  confined  in  the  gaol  of  Olmuky.  Though,  at 
the  suggestion  of  Bishop  Prettyman,  Mr.  Pitt  pledged  him¬ 
self  to  introduce  a  bill  which  would  have  silenced  every 
dissenting  minister  to  whom  the  magistrates  might  have 
thought  proper  to  refuse  a  license,  Mr.  Wilberforce  resisted, 
and  with  eventful  success,  this  encroachment  on  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  toleration.  Though  the  whole  belligerent  policy 
of  Mr.  Pitt,  on  the  resumption  of  the  war,  rested  on  conti¬ 
nental  alliances,  cemented  by  subsidies  from  the  British 
Treasury,  that  system  found  in  Mr.  Wilberforce  the  most 
strenuous  and  uncompromising  opponent.  On  the  revival 


4G 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


of  hostilities  in  1803,  he  supported  Mr.  Fox  not  merely 
with  his  vote,  but  with  a  speech  which  he  subsequently 
published.  The  impeachment  of  Lord  Melville  brought 
him  into  a  direct  and  painful  hostility  to  those  with  whom 
he  had  lived  in  youthful  intimacy,  and  who  still  retained 
their  hold  on  his  heart.  Mr.  Pitt  was  his  chosen  friend — 
Lord  Melville  his  early  companion.  But  even  on  this  oc¬ 
casion,  though  compelled  to  watch  the  movements  of  the 
“  fascinating  eye  ”  and  “  the  agitated  countenance  ”  turned 
reproachfully  to  him  from  the  Treasury  Bench,  he  delivered 
one  of  the  most  memorable  of  his  Parliamentary  speeches, 
— in  which  the  sternest  principles  of  public  morality  were 
so  touchingly  combined  with  compassion  for  the  errors  he 
condemned,  that  the  effect  was  irresistible;  and  the  casting 
vote  of  the  Speaker  can  scarcely  be  said  with  greater  truth 
to  have  determined  the  decision  of  the  House.  Nothing 
more  truly,  in  the  spirit  of  the  pure  and  lofty  principles 
by  which  he  was  guided  is  recorded  of  him,  than  his 
defence  to  the  charge  of  inconsistency  for  declining  to 
join  the  deputation  which  carried  up  to  the  King  the  sub¬ 
sequent  address  for  the  removal  of  Lord  Melville  from  the 
Royal  Councils.  “lama  little  surprised  that  it  should  be 
imputed  as  a  fault  to  any  that  they  did  not  accompany  the 
procession  to  St.  James’s.  I  should  have  thought  that  men’s 
own  feelings  might  have  suggested  to  them  that  it  was  a 
case  in  which  the  heart  might  be  permitted  to  give  a  lesson 
to  the  judgment.  My  country  might  justly  demand  that, 
in  my  decision  on  Lord  Melville’s  conduct,  I  should  be  go¬ 
verned  by  the  rules  of  justice,  and  the  principles  of  the 
constitution,  without  suffering  party  considerations,  perso¬ 
nal  friendship,  or  any  extrinsic  motive  whatever  to  inter¬ 
fere;  that  in  all  that  was  substantial  I  should  deem  myself 
as  in  the  exercise  of  a  judicial  office.  But  when  the  sen¬ 
tence  of  the  law  is  past,  is  not  that  sufficient?  Am  I  to 
join  in  the  execution  of  it?  Is  it  to  be  expected  of  me  that 
I  am  to  stifle  the  natural  feelings  of  the  heart,  and  not  even 
to  shed  a  tear  over  the  very  sentence  I  am  pronouncing  ? 
I  know  not  what  Spartan  virtue  or  stoical  pride  might  re¬ 
quire;  but  I  know  that  I  am  taught  a  different,  ay,  and  a 
better  lesson  by  a  greater  than  either  Lycurgus  or  Zeno. 
Christianity  enforces  no  such  sacrifice.  She  requires  us 
indeed  to  do  justice,  but  to  love  mercy.  I  learnt  not  in  her 
school  to  triumph  even  over  a  conquered  enemy,  and  must 
I  join  the  triumph  over  a  fallen  friend?” 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


47 


We  might,  with  the  aid  of  these  volumes,  trace  Mr.  Wil- 
berforce’s  political  career  through  all  the  memorable  con¬ 
troversies  of  his  times,  and  prove  beyond  the  reach  of  con¬ 
tradiction,  that  every  vote  was  given  under  such  a  sense  of 
responsibility  to  the  Supreme  Lawgiver  as  raised  him  above 
the  influence  of  those  human  affections,  which  scarcely  any 
man  felt  more  keenly.  He  was  supported  by  the  acclama¬ 
tions  of  no  party,  for  in  turn  he  resisted  all.  Even  the 
great  religious  bodies  who  acknowledged  him  as  their 
leader  were  frequently  dissatisfied  with  a  course  which, 
while  it  adorned  their  principles,  conceded  nothing  to  their 
prejudices.  The  errors  into  which  he  may  have  fallen 
were  in  no  single  case  debased  by  any  selfish  motive,  and 
were  ever  on  the  side  of  peace  and  of  the  civil  and  religious 
liberties  of  mankind. 

But  those  indications  of  human  character  which  it  chiefly 
concerns  us  to  study,  are  not,  after  all,  to  be  discovered  in 
places  where  men  act  together  in  large  masses,  and  under 
strong  excitement.  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  interior  life  is  ex- 
hibited  in  this  biography  with  a  minuteness  of  self-dissec¬ 
tion  which  we  think  hardly  possible  to  contemplate  with¬ 
out  some  degree  of  pain.  It  was  his  habit  to  note,  in  the 
most  careless  and  elliptical  language,  every  passing  occur¬ 
rence,  however  trivial,  apparently  as  a  mere  aid  to  recollec¬ 
tion.  But  his  journals  also  contain  the  results  of  a  most 
unsparing  self-examination,  and  record  the  devotional  feel¬ 
ings  with  which  his  mind  was  habitually  possessed.  They 
bear  that  impress  of  perfect  sincerity,  without  which  they 
would  have  been  altogether  worthless.  The  suppression 
of  them  would  have  disappointed  the  expectations  of  a 
very  large  body  of  readers;  and  the  sacred  profession  of 
the  editors  gives  peculiar  authority  to  their  judgment  as  to 
the  advantage  of  such  disclosures.  To  their  filial  piety  the 
whole  work,  indeed  almost  every  line  of  it,  bears  conclusive 
testimony.  We  feel,  however,  an  invincible  repugnance  to 
the  transfer  into  these  pages  of  the  secret  communings  of 
a  close  self-observer  with  his  Maker.  The  Church  of  Rome 
is  wise  in  proclaiming  the  sanctity  of  the  Confessional.  The 
morbid  anatomy  of  the  human  heart  (for  such  it  must  ap¬ 
pear  to  every  one  who  dares  to  explore  its  recesses)  is  at 
best  a  cheerless  study.  It  would  require  some  fortitude  in 
any  man  to  state  how  much  of  our  mutual  affection  and 
esteem  depends  upon  our  imperfect  knowledge  of  each 


48 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


other.  The  same  creative  wisdom  which  shelters  from 
every  human  eye  the  workings  of  our  animal  frame,  has 
not  less  closely  shrouded  from  observation  the  movements 
of  our  spiritual  nature.  The  lowly  and  contrite  spirit  is  a 
shrine  in  which  he  who  inhabiteth  eternity  condescends  to 
dwell,  but  where  we  at  least  are  accustomed  to  regard  every 
other  presence  as  profane.  There  is,  we  think,  great  danger 
in  such  publications.  For  one  man  who,  like  Mr.  Wilber- 
force,  will  honestly  lay  bare  his  conscience  on  paper,  there 
are  at  least  one  hundred,  living  with  the  fear  or  the  hope 
of  the  biographer  before  their  eyes,  who  will  apply  them¬ 
selves  to  the  same  task  in  a  very  different  spirit.  The 
desire  of  posthumous,  or  of  living  fame,  will  dictate  the  ac¬ 
knowledgment  of  faults,  which  the  reader  is  to  regard  as 
venial,  while  he  is  to  admire  the  sagacity  with  which  they 
are  dictated,  and  the  tenderness  of  conscience  with  which 
they  are  deplored.  We  may  be  wrong;  but  both  expe¬ 
rience  and  probability  seem  to  us  to  show  that  the  publica¬ 
tion  of  the  religious  journals  of  one  honest  man,  is  likely 
to  make  innumerable  hypocrites. 

The  domestic  life  of  Mr.  Wilberforce  is  a  delightful  ob¬ 
ject  of  contemplation,  though  it  cannot  be  reduced  into  the 
form  of  distinct  narration.  From  his  twenty-sixth  year 
his  biography  consists  rather  of  a  description  of  habits  than 
of  a  succession  of  events.  No  man  had  less  to  do  with 
adventure,  or  was  more  completely  independent  of  any 
such  resource.  The  leisure  which  he  could  withdraw 
from  the  service  of  the  public  was  concentrated  upon  his 
large  and  happy  household,  and  on  the  troops  of  friends 
who  thronged  the  hospitable  mansion  in  which  he  lived  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  London. 

The  following  sketch  of  his  domestic  retirement  pos¬ 
sesses  a  truth  which  will  be  at  once  recognised  by  every 
one  who  was  accustomed  to  associate  with  him  in  such 
scenes: — 

“Who  that  ever  joined  him  in  his  hour  of  daily  exer¬ 
cise  cannot  see  him  now  as  he  walked  round  his  garden  at 
Highwood,  now  in  animated  and  even  playful  conversa¬ 
tion,  and  then  drawing  from  his  copious  pockets  (to  contain 
Dalrymple’s  State  Papers  was  their  standard  measure)  a 
Psalter,  a  Horace,  a  Shakspeare,  or  Cowper,  and  reading 
or  reciting  chosen  passages,  and  then  catching  at  long 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


49 


stored  dower  leaves  as  the  wind  blew  them  from  the  pages, 
or  standing  by  a  favourite  gumcistus  to  repair  the  loss.  Then 
he  would  point  out  the  harmony  of  the  -tints,  the  beauty 
of  the  pencilling  and  the  perfection  of  the  colouring,  and 
sum  up  all  into  those  ascriptions  of  praise  to  the  Almighty 
which  were  ever  welling  from  his  grateful  heart.  He 
loved  flowers  with  all  the  simple  delight  of  childhood. 
He  would  hover  from  bed  to  bed  over  his  favourites,  and 
when  he  came  in,  even  from  his  shortest  walk,  he  deposit¬ 
ed  a  few  that  he  had  gathered  safely  in  his  room  before  he 
joined  the  breakfast  table.  Often  he  would  say  as  he  en¬ 
joyed  their  fragrance,  4  How  good  is  God  to  us.  What 
should  we  think  of  a  friend  who  had  furnished  us  with  a 
magnificent  house  and  all  we  needed,  and  then  coming  in 
to  see  that  all  had  been  provided  according  to  his  wishes, 
should  be  hurt  to  find  that  no  scents  had  been  placed  in  the 
rooms?  Yet  so  has  God  dealt  with  us — lovely  flowers  are 
the  smiles  of  his  goodness.’” 

The  following  letter  to  one  of  his  children  exhibits  Mr. 
Wilberforce  in  one  of  those  characters  in  which  he  ex¬ 
celled  most  men: — 

“  Battersea,  Rise,  Sept.  14,  1814. 

44  My  very  dear  — - . 

44 1  do  not  relish  the  idea  that  you  are  the  only  one  of 
my  children  who  has  not  written  to  me  during  my  absence, 
and  that  you  should  be  the  only  one  to  whom  I  should  not 
write.  I  therefore  take  up  my  pen,  though  but  for  a  few 
moments,  to  assure  you  that  I  do  not  suspect  your  silence 
to  have  arisen  from  the  want  of  affection  for  me,  any  more 
than  that  which  I  myself  have  hitherto  observed  has  pro¬ 
ceeded  from  this  source.  There  is  a  certain  demon  called 
procrastination,  who  inhabits  a  castle  in  the  air  at  Sandgate, 
as  well  as  at  so  many  other  places,  and  I  suspect  that  you 
have  been  carried  up  some  day  (at  the  tail  of  your  kite  per¬ 
haps,)  and  lodged  in  that  same  habitation,  which  has  fine 
large  rooms  in  it  from  which  there  are  beautiful  prospects 
in  all  directions;  and  probably  you  will  not  quit  a  dwell¬ 
ing-place  that  you  like  so  well,  till  you  hear  that  I  am  on 
my  way  to  Sandgate.  You  will  meet  the  to-morrow  man 
there  (it  just  occurs  to  me,)  and  I  hope  you  will  have  pre¬ 
vailed  on  him  to  tell  you  the  remainder  of  that  pleasant 
story,  a  part  of  which  Miss  Edgeworth  has  related, 
though  I  greatly  fear  he  would  still  partake  so  far  of  the 

o 


50 


Stephen's  miscellanies. 


spirit  of  the  place  as  to  leave  a  part  untold  till — to-morrow. 
But  I  am  trifling  sadly,  since  I  am  this  morning  unusually 
pressed  for  time,  I  will  therefore  only  guard  my  dear  boy 
seriously  against  procrastination,  one  of  the  most  dangerous 
assailants  of  usefulness,  and  assure  him  that  I  am  to-day, 
to-morrow,  and  always  while  I  exist,  his  affectionate  Father. 

W.  WlLBERFORCE.” 

Mr.  Wilberforce  excelled  in  the  arts  of  hospitality,  and 
delighted  in  the  practice  of  them.  His  cordial  welcome 
taught  the  most  casual  guest  to  feel  that  he  was  at  home ; 
and  the  mass  of  his  friends  and  acquaintance  could  scarcely 
suppose  that  there  was  a  domestic  sanctuary  still  more 
sacred  and  privileged  than  that  into  which  they  were  ad¬ 
mitted.  Amongst  them  are  not  a  few  obscure,  with  some 
illustrious  names;  and  of  the  latter  Mr.  Pitt  is  by  far  the 
most  conspicuous. 

There  is  no  one  filling  so  large  a  space  in  recent  history 
as  Mr.  Pitt,  with  whose  private  habits  the  world  is  so  little 
acquainted.  These  volumes  do  not  contribute  much  to 
dispel  the  obscurity.  We  find  him  indeed  at  one  time 
passing  an  evening  in  classical  studies  or  amusements  with 
Mr.  Ganning;  and  at  another,  cutting  walks  through  his 
plantations  at  Holwood,  with  the  aid  of  Mr.  Wilberforce 
and  Lord  Grenville.  But  on  the  whole,  the  William  Pitt 
of  this  work  is  the  austere  Minister  with  whom  we  were 
already  acquainted,  and  not  the  man  himself  in  his  natural 
or  in  his  emancipated  state. 

The  following  extract  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  Wilberforce 
is  almost  the  only  passage  which  gives  us  an  intimation  of 
the  careless  familiarity  in  which  for  many  years  they  lived 
together: — 

“  And  now  after  having  transacted  my  business  with  the 
Minister,  a  word  or  two  to  the  man — a  character  in  which, 
if  it  is  more  pleasant  to  you,  it  is  no  less  pleasant  to  me 
to  address  you.  I  wish  you  may  be  passing  your  time 
half  as  salubriously  and  comfortably  as  I  am  at  Gisborne’s, 
where  I  am  breathing  good  air,  eating  good  mutton,  keeping 
good  hours,  and  enjoying  the  company  of  good  friends. 
You  have  only  two  of  the  four  at  command,  nor  these  al¬ 
ways  in  so  pure  a  state  as  in  Needwood  Forest;  your  town 
mutton  being  apt  to  be  woolly,  and  your  town  friends  to 
be  interested:  however,  I  sincerely  believe  you  are,  through 
the  goodness  of  Providence,  better  off  in  the  latter  pnrticu- 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


51 


lar,  than  has  been  the  fate  of  ninety-nine  Ministers  out  of  a 
hundred ;  and  as  for  the  former,  the  quantity  you  lay  in 
may  in  some  degree  atone  for  the  quality;  and  it  is  a  sign 
that  neither  in  friends  nor  mutton  you  have  yet  lost  your 
taste.  Indeed,  I  shall  reckon  it  a  bad  symptom  of  your 
moral  or  corporal  state,  as  the  case  may  be,  when  your 
palate  is  so  vitiated,  that  you  cannot  distinguish  the  true 
from  the  false  flavour.  All  this  is  sad  stuff,  but  you  must 
allow  us  gentlemen  who  live  in  forests  to  be  a  little  figura¬ 
tive.  I  will  only  add,  however,  (that  I  may  not  quite 
exhaust  your  patience,)  that  I  hope  you  will  never  cease 
to  relish  me,  and  do  me  the  justice  to  believe  the  ingre¬ 
dients  are  good,  though  vou  may  not  altogether  approve  of 
the  cooking.  Yours  ever,  W,  Wilberforce.” 

“  P.  S.  Remember  me  to  all  friends.  I  hope  you  have 
no  more  gout,  &c.  If  you  will  at  any  time  give  me  a  line 
(though  it  be  but  a  mouthful,)  I  shall  be  glad  of  it.  You 
will  think  me  be-Burked  like  yourself,” 

On  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Pitt’s  duel  with  Mr.  Tierney, 
Mr.  Wilberforce  had  designed  to  bring  the  subject  under 
the  notice  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  intention  was 
defeated  by  the  following  kind  and  characteristic  letter: — 

“  My  dear  Wilberforce:— 

“  I  am  not  the  person  to  argue  with  you  on  a  subject  in 
which  I  am  a  good  deal  concerned.  I  hope  too  that  I  am 
incapable  of  doubting  your  kindness  to  me  (however  mis¬ 
taken  I  may  think  it,)  if  you  let  any  sentiment  of  that  sort, 
actuate  you  on  the  present  occasion.  I  must  suppose  that 
some  such  feeling  has  inadvertently  operated  upon  you, 
because  whatever  may  be  your  general  sentiments  on  sub¬ 
jects  of  this  nature,  they  can  have  acquired  no  new  tone  or 
additional  argument  from  any  thing  that  has  passed  in  this 
transaction.  You  must  be  supposed  to  bring  this  forward 
in  reference  to  the  individual  cage. 

“  In  doing  so,  you  will  be  accessary  in  loading  one  of 
the  parties  with  unfair  and  unmerited  obloquy.  With  re¬ 
spect  to  the  other  party,  myself,  I  feel  it  a  real  duty  to  say 
to  you  frankly  that  your  motion  is  one  for  my  removal. 
If  any  step  on  the  subject  is  proposed  in  Parliament  and 
agreed  to,  I  shall  feel  from  that  moment  that  I  can  be  of 
no  more  use  out  of  office  than  in  it;  for  in  it  according  to 
the  feelings  I  entertain,  I  could  be  of  none.  I  state  to  you, 


52 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


as  I  think  I  ought,  distinctly  and  explicitly  what  I  feel.  I 
hope  I  need  not  repeat  what  I  always  feel  personally  to 
yourself. — Your’s  ever,  William  Pitt.” 

“  Downing  Street,  Wednesday,  May  30,  1798,  IIP.  M.” 

The  following  passage  is  worth  transcribing  as  a  graphic, 
though  slight  sketch  of  Mr.  Pitt,  from  the  pen  of  one  who 
knew  him  so  well: — 

“  When  a  statement  had  been  made  to  the  House  of  the 
cruel  practices  approaching  certainly  to  torture,  by  which 
the  discovery  of  concealed  arms  had  been  enforced  in  Ire¬ 
land,  John  Claudius  Beresford  rose  to  reply,  and  said  with 
a  force  and  honesty,  the  impression  of  which  I  never  can 
forget,  ‘  1  fear,  and  feel  deep  shame  in  making  the  avowal 
— I  fear  it  is  too  true — 1  defend  it  not— -but  I  trust  I  may 
be  permitted  to  refer,  as  some  palliation  of  these  atrocities, 
to  the  state  of  my  unhappy  country,  where  rebellion  and 
its  attendant  horrors  had  roused  on  both  sides  to  the  highest 
pitch  all  the  strongest  passions  of  our  nature.’  I  was  with 
Pitt  in  the  House  of  Lords  when  Lord  Clare  replied  to  a 
similar  charge — ‘  Well,  suppose  it  were  so;  but  surely,’  &c. 
I  shall  never  forget  Pitt’s  look.  He  turned  round  to  me 
with  that  indignant  stare  which  sometimes  marked  his 
countenance,  and  stalked  out  of  the  House.” 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  at  the  period  of  Lord 
Melville’s  trial  a  coolness  almost  approaching  to  estrange¬ 
ment  had  arisen  between  that  minister  and  Mr.  Pitt.  The 
following  extract  from  one  of  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  Diaries  on 
this  subject  affords  an  authentic  and  curious  illustration  of 
Mr.  Pitt’s  character:— 

“  I  had  perceived  above  a  year  before  that  Lord  Melville 
had  not  the  power  over  Pitt’s  mind,  which  he  once  pos¬ 
sessed.  Pitt  was  taking  me  to  Lord  Camden’s,  and  in  our 
tete-a-tete  he  gave  me  an  account  of  the  negotiations  which 
had  been  on  foot  to  induce  him  to  enter  Addington’s  Ad¬ 
ministration.  When  they  quitted  office  in  1801,  Dundas 
proposed  taking  as  his  motto,  Jam  rude  donatus .  Pitt 
suggested  to  him  that  having  always  been  an  active  man, 
he  would  probably  wish  again  to  come  into  office,  and  then 
that  his  having  taken  such  a  motto  would  be  made  a  ground 
for  ridicule.  Dundas  assented,  and  took  another  motto. 
Addington  had  not  long  been  in  office,  before  Pitt’s  expec- 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


53 


tation  was  fulfilled,  and  Dundas  undertook  to  bring  Pitt  into 
the  plan ;  which  was  to  appoint  some  third  person  head, 
and  bring  in  Pitt  and  Addington  on  equal  terms  under  him. 
Dundas,  accordingly,  confiding  in  his  knowledge  of  all  Pitt’s 
ways  and  feelings,  set  out  for  W aimer  Castle;  and  after 
dinner,  and  port  wine,  began  cautiously  to  open  his  pro¬ 
posals.  But  he  saw  it  would  not  do,  and  stopped  abruptly. 
‘  Really,’  said  Pitt  with  a  sly  severity,  and  it  was  almost 
the  only  sharp  thing  I  ever  heard  him  say  of  any  friend, 
‘  I  had  not  the  curiosity  to  ask  what  I  was  to  be.”’ 

Amongst  the  letters  addressed  to  Mr.  Wilberforce,  to  be 
found  in  these  volumes,  is  one  written  by  John  Wesley 
from  his  death-bed,  on  the  day  before  he  sank  into  the 
lethargy  from  which  he  was  never  roused.  They  are  pro¬ 
bably  the  last  written  words  of  that  extraordinary  man. 

“  My  dear  Sir,  “  February  24,  1791. 

“  Unless  Divine  power  has  raised  you  up  to  be  as 
Athanasius  contra  mundum ,  I  see  not  how  you  can  go 
through  your  glorious  enterprise,  in  opposing  that  execra¬ 
ble  villainy  which  is  the  scandal  of  religion,  of  England, 
and  of  human  nature.  Unless  God  has  raised  you  up  for 
this  very  thing,  you  will  be  worn  out  by  the  opposition  of 
men  and  devils;  and  if  God  be  for  you,  who  can  be  against 
you?  Are  all  of  them  together  stronger  than  God?  Oh! 
be  not  weary  of  well-doing.  Go  on  in  the  name  of  God, 
and  in  the  power  of  his  might,  till  even  American  slavery, 
the  vilest  that  ever  saw  the  sun,  shall  vanish  away  before  it. 
That  He  who  has  guided  you  from  your  youth  up,  may 
continue  to  strengthen  you  in  this  and  all  things,  is  the 
prayer  of,  dear  sir,  your  affectionate  servant, 

John  Wesley.” 

From  a  very  different  correspondent,  Jeremy  Bentham, 
Mr.  Wilberforce  received  two  notes,  for  which,  as  they 
are  the  only  examples  we  have  seen  in  print  of  his  episto¬ 
lary  style,  we  must  find  a  place, 

“  Kind  Sir, 

“  The  next  time  you  happen  on  Mr.  Attorney-General 
in  the  House  or  elsewhere,  be  pleased  to  take  a  spike — * 
the  longer  and  sharper  the  better — and  apply  it  to  him  by 
way  of  memento ,  that  the  Penitentiary  Contract  Bill  has, 
for  I  know  not  what  length  of  time,  been  slicking  in  his 

5* 


54 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


hands;  and  you  will  much  oblige  your  humble  servant  to 
command,  Jeremy  Bentham.” 

“  N.  B.  A  corking-pin  was,  yesterday,  applied  by  Mr. 
Abbot.” 

“  I  sympathize  with  your  now  happily  promising  exer¬ 
tions  in  behalf  of  the  race  of  innocents,  whose  lot  it  has 
hitherto  been  to  be  made  the  subject-matter  of  depredation, 
for  the  purpose  of  being  treated  worse  than  the  authors  of 
such  crimes  are  treated  for  those  crimes  in  other  places.” 

There  are,  in  this  work,  some  occasional  additions  to 
the  stock  of  political  anecdotes.  Of  these  we  transcribe 
the  following  specimens  : — 

“  Franklin  signed  the  peace  of  Paris  in  his  old  spotted 
velvet  coat  (it  being  the  time  of  a  court-mourning,  which 
rendered  it  more  particular.)  ‘  What,’  said  my  friend  the 
negotiator,  ‘  is  the  meaning  of  that  harlequin  coat?’  ‘  It  is 
that  in  which  he  was  abused  by  Wedderburne.’  He  showed 
much  rancour  and  personal  enmity  to  this  country — would 
not  grant  the  common  passports  for  trade,  which  were,  how¬ 
ever,  easily  got  from  Jay  or  Adams. 

“  Dined  with  Lord  Camden;  he,  very  chatty  and  pleasant. 
Abused  Thurlow  for  his  duplicity  and  mystery.  Said  the 
King  had  said  to  him  occasionally  he  had  wished  Thurlow 
and  Pitt  to  agree ;  for  that  both  were  necessary  to  him— 
one  in  the  Lords,  the  other  in  the  Commons.  Thurlow 
will  never  do  any  thing  to  oblige  Lord  Camden,  because 
he  is  a  friend  of  Pitt’s.  Lord  Camden  himself,  though  he 
speaks  of  Pitt  with  evident  affection,  seems  rather  to  com¬ 
plain  of  his  being  too  much  under  the  influence  of  any  one 
who  is  about  him;  particularly  of  Dundas,  who  prefers  his 
countrymen  whenever  he  can. — Lord  Camden  is  sure  that 
Lord  Bute  got  money  by  the  peace  of  Paris.  He  can  ac¬ 
count  for  his  sinking  near  .£300,000  in  land  and  houses ; 
and  his  paternal  estate  in  the  island  which  bears  his  name 
was  not  above  £1500  a-year,  and  he  is  a  life-tenant  only  of 
Wortley,  which  may  be  £8000  or  £10,000.  Lord  Cam¬ 
den  does  not  believe  Lord  Bute  has  any  the  least  connexion 
with  the  King  now,  whatever  he  may  have  had.  Lord 
Thurlow  is  giving  constant  dinners  to  the  Judges,  to  gain 
them  over  to  his  party,  *  *  *  *  was  applied  to  by  *  *  *  *,  a 
wretched  sort  of  dependant  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  to 
know  if  he  would  lend  him  money  on  the  joint  bond  of 
the  Prince  and  the  dukes  of  York  and  Clarence,  to  receive 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


55 


double  the  sum  lent,  whenever  the  King  should  die,  and 
either  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the  Dukes  of  York  and  Cla¬ 
rence,  come  into  the  inheritance.  The  sum  intended  to 
be  raised  is  ^6200,000. 

“  ’Tis  only  a  hollow  truce,  not  a  peace,  that  is  made 
between  Thurlow  and  Pitt.  They  can  have  no  confidence 
in  each  other.” 

It  is  perhaps  the  most  impressive  circumstance  in  Mr. 
Wilberforce’s  character,  that  the  lively  interest  with  which 
he  engaged  in  all  these  political  occurrences  was  combined 
with  a  consciousness  not  less  habitual  or  intense  of  their 
inherent  vanity.  There  is  a  seeming  paradox  in  the  soli¬ 
citude  with  which  he  devoted  so  much  of  his  life  to  secular 
pursuits,  and  the  very  light  esteem  in  which  he  held  them. 
The  solution  of  the  enigma  is  to  be  found  in  his  unremitting 
habits  of  devotion.  No  man  could  more  scrupulously  obey 
the  precept  which  Mr.  Taylor  has  given  to  his  “  statesman  ” 
— To  observe  a  “  Sabbatical  day  in  every  week,  and  a  Sab¬ 
batical  hour  in  every  day.”  Those  days  and  hours  gave 
him  back  to  the  world,  not  merely  with  recruited  energy, 
but  in  a  frame  of  mind  the  most  favourable  to  the  right  dis- 
charge  of  its  duties.  Things  in  themselves  the  most  trivial, 
wearisome,  or  even  offensive,  had,  in  his  solitude,  assumed 
a  solemn  interest  from  their  connexion  with  the  future  des¬ 
tinies  of  mankind,  whilliant  and  alluring  objects  of  human 
ambition  had  been  brought  into  a  humiliating  contrast  with 
the  great  ends  for  which  life  is  given,  and  with  the  immor¬ 
tal  hopes  by  which  it  should  be  sustained.  Nothing  can 
be  more  heartfelt  than  the  delight  with  which  he  breathed 
the  pure  air  of  these  devotional  retirements.  Nothing  more 
soothing  than  the  tranquillity  which  they  diffused  over  a 
mind  harassed  with  the  vexations  of  a  political  life. 

Mr.  Wilberforce  retired  from  Parliament  in  the  year  1825. 
The  remainder  of  his  life  was  passed  in  the  bosom  of  his 
family.  He  did  not  entirely  escape  those  sorrows  which 
so  usually  thicken  as  the  shadows  grow  long,  for  he  sur¬ 
vived  both  his  daughters;  and,  from  that  want  of  worldly 
wisdom  which  always  characterized  him,  he  lost  a  very 
considerable  part  of  his  fortune  in  speculations  in  which 
he  had  nothing  but  the  gratification  of  parental  kindness  to 
gain  or  to  hope.  But  never  were  such  reverses  more  effec¬ 
tually  baffled  by  the  invulnerable  peace  of  a  cheerful  and 
self-approving  heart.  There  were  not  wanting  external 


56 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


circumstances  which  marked  the  change;  but  the  most 
close  and  intimate  observer  could  never  perceive  on  his 
countenance  even  a  passing  shade  of  dejection  or  anxiety 
on  that  account.  He  might,  indeed,  have  been  supposed 
to  be  unconscious  that  he  had  lost  any  thing,  had  not  his 
altered  fortunes  occasionally  suggested  to  him  remarks  on 
the  Divine  goodness,  by  which  the  seeming  calamity  had 
been  converted  into  a  blessing  to  his  children  and  to  him¬ 
self.  It  afforded  him  a  welcome  apology  for  withdrawing 
from  society  at  large,  to  gladden,  by  his  almost  constant 
presence,  the  homes  of  his  sons  by  whom  his  life  has  been 
recorded.  There,  surrounded  by  his  children  and  his  grande 
children,  he  yielded  himself  to  the  current  of  each  succes¬ 
sive  inclination;  for  he  had  now  acquired  that  rare  maturity 
of  the  moral  stature  in  which  the  conflict  between  inclina- 
nation  and  duty  is  over,  and  virtue  and  self-indulgence  are 
the  same.  Some  decline  of  his  intellectual  powers  was 
perceptible  to  the  friends  of  his  earlier  and  more  active 
days;  but 

“To  things  immortal  time  can  do  no  wrong, 

And  that  which  never  is  to  die,  for  ever  must  be  young,” 

Looking  back  with  gratitude,  sometimes  eloquent,  but  more 
often  from  the  depth  of  the  emotion  faltering  on  the  tongue, 
to  his  long  career  of  usefulness,  of  honour,  and  enjoyment, 
he  watched  with  grave  serenity  the  ebb  of  the  current  which 
was  fast  bearing  him  to  his  eternal  reward.  He  died  in  his 
seventy-fifth  year,  in  undisturbed  tranquillity,  after  a  very 
brief  illness,  and  without  any  indication  of  bodily  suffering. 
He  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey,  in  the  presence  of 
a  large  number  of  the  members  of  both  Houses  of  Parlia¬ 
ment;  nor  was  the  solemn  ritual  of  the  church  ever  pro¬ 
nounced  over  the  grave  of  any  of  her  children  with  more 
affecting  or  more  appropriate  truth.  Never  was  recited, 
on  a  more  fit  occasion,  the  sublime  benediction — “  1  heard 
a  voice  from  heaven  saying,  Write,  blessed  are  the  dead 
who  die  in  the  Lord,  for  they  rest  from  their  labours,  and 
their  works  do  follow  them.” 

The  volumes  to  which  we  have  been  chiefly  indebted 
for  this  very  rapid  epitome  of  some  of  the  events  of  Mr. 
Wilberforce’s  life,  will  have  to  undergo  a  severe  ordeal. 
There  are  numberless  persons  who  assert  a  kind  of  pro¬ 
perty  in  his  reputation,  and  who  will  resent  as  almost  a 
personal  wrong  any  exhibition  of  his  character  which  may 


LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE. 


57 


fall  short  of  their  demands.  We  believe,  however,  though 
not  esteeming  ourselves  the  best  possible  judges,  that  even 
this  powerful  party  will  be  satisfied.  They  will  find  in 
this  portraiture  of  their  great  leader  much  to  fulfil  their  ex¬ 
pectations.  Impartial  judges  will,  we  think,  award  to  the 
book  the  praise  of  fidelity,  and  diligence,  and  unaffected 
modesty.  Studiously  withdrawing  themselves  from  the 
notice  of  their  readers,  the  biographers  of  Mr.  Wilberforce 
have  not  sought  occasion  to  display  the  fruits  of  their  theo¬ 
logical  or  literary  studies.  Their  taste  has  been  executed 
with  ability,  and  with  deep  affection.  No  one  can  read 
such  a  narrative  without  interest,  and  many  will  peruse  it 
with  enthusiasm.  It  contains  several  extracts  from  Mr. 
Wilberforce’s  speeches  and  throws  much  occasional  light 
on  the  political  history  of  England  during  the  last  half  cen¬ 
tury.  It  brings  us  into  acquaintance  with  a  circle  in  which 
were  projected  and  matured  many  of  the  great  schemes  of 
benevolence  by  which  our  age  has  been  distinguished,  and 
shows  how  partial  is  the  distribution  of  renown  in  the 
world  in  which  we  are  living.  A  more  equal  dispensation 
of  justice  would  have  awarded  a  far  more  conspicuous  place 
amongst  the  benefactors  of  mankind  to  the  names  of  Mr. 
Stephen  and  Mr.  Macaulay,  than  has  ever  yet  been  as¬ 
signed  to  them. 

Biography,  considered  as  an  art,  has  been  destroyed  by 
the  greatest  of  all  biographers,  James  Boswell.  His  suc¬ 
cess  must  be  forgotten  before  Plutarch  or  Isaac  Walton  will 
find  either  rivals  or  imitators.  Yet  memoirs,  into  which 
every  thing  illustrative  of  the  character  or  fortunes  of  the 
person  to  be  described  is  drawn,  can  never  take  a  perma¬ 
nent  place  in  literature,  unless  the  hero  be  himself  as  pic¬ 
turesque  as  Johnson,  nor  unless  the  writer  be  gifted  with 
the  dramatic  powers  of  Boswell.  Mr.  Wilberforce  was  an 
admirable  subject  for  graphic  sketches  in  this  style;  but 
the  hand  of  a  son  could  not  have  drawn  them  without  im¬ 
propriety,  and  they  have  never  been  delineated  by  others. 
A  tradition,  already  fading,  alone  preserves  the  memory  of 
those  social  powers  which  worked  as  a  spell  on  every  one 
who  approached  him,  and  drew  from  Madame  de  Stael  the 
declaration  that  he  was  the  most  eloquent  and  the  wittiest 
converser  she  had  met  in  England.  But  the  memory  of  his 
influence  in  the  councils  of  the  state,  of  his  holy  character, 
and  of  his  services  to  mankind,  rests  upon  an  imperishable 
basis,  and  will  descend  with  honour  to  the  latest  times. 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE.* 


(Edinburgh  Review,  1833.) 

If  the  enemies  of  Christianity  in  the  commencement  of 
the  last  century  failed  to  accomplish  its  overthrow,  they 
were  at  least  successful  in  producing  what  at  present  ap¬ 
pears  to  have  been  a  strange  and  unreasonable  panic. 
Middleton,  Bolingbroke,  and  Mandeville,  have  now  lost 
their  terrors;  and  (in  common  with  the  heroes  of  the  Dun- 
ciad)  Chubb,  Toland,  Collins,  and  Woolston,  are  remem¬ 
bered  only  on  account  of  the  brilliancy  of  the  Aulo-du-fe 
at  which  they  suffered.  To  these  writers,  however,  be¬ 
longs  the  credit  of  having  suggested  to  Clarke  his  inquiries 
into  the  elementary  truth  on  which  all  religion  depends  ; 
and  by  them  Warburton  was  provoked  to  “  demonstrate  ” 
the  Divine  legation  of  Moses.  They  excited  Newton  to 
explore  the  fulfilment  of  Prophecy,  and  Lardner  to  accumu¬ 
late  the  proofs  of  the  Credibility  of  the  Gospels.  A  great¬ 
er  than  any  of  these,  Joseph  Butler,  was  induced,  by  the  same 
adversaries,  to  investigate  the  analogy  of  natural  and  revealed 
religion,  and  Berkeley  and  Sherlock,  with  a  long  catalogue 
of  more  obscure  names,  crowded  to  the  rescue  of  the  me¬ 
naced  citadel  of  the  Faith.  But  in  this  anxiety  to  strengthen 
its  defences,  the  garrison  not  only  declined  to  attempt  new 
conquests,  but  withdrew  from  much  of  their  ancient  domi¬ 
nion.  In  this  its  apologetic  age,  English  Theology  was 
distinguished  by  an  unwonted  timidity  and  coldness.  The 
alliance  which  it  had  maintained  from  the  days  of  Jewel  to 
those  of  Leighton,  with  philosophy  and  eloquence,  with 
wit  and  poetry,  was  dissolved.  Taylor  and  Hall,  Donne 
and  Hooker,  Baxter  and  Howe,  had  spoken  as  men  having 

*  The  Life  and  Times  of  the  Rev.  George  Whitfield,  M.  A.  By 
Robert  Philip.  8vo.  London,  1838. 

Remains  of  the  Rev.  Richard  Hurrell  Froude,  M.  A.  Fellow  of 
Oriel  College,  Oxford.  2  vols.  8vo.  London,  1838. 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


59 


authority)  and  with  an  unclouded  faith  in  their  Divine  Mis¬ 
sion.  In  that  confidence  they  had  grappled  with  every 
difficulty,  and  had  wielded  with  equal  energy  and  ease  all 
the  resources  of  genius  and  of  learning.  Alternately 
searching  the  depths  of  the  heart,  and  playing  over  the  mere 
surface  of  the  mind,  they  relieved  the  subtleties  of  logic  by 
a  quibble  or  a  pun,  and  illuminated,  by  intense  flashes  of 
wit,  the  metaphysical  abysses  which  it  was  their  delight  to 
tread.  Even  when  directing  the  spiritual  affections  to  their 
highest  exercise,  they  hazarded  any  quaint  conceit  which 
crossed  their  path,  and  yielded  to  every  impulse  of  fancy 
or  of  passion.  But  Divinity  was  no  longer  to  retain  the 
foremost  place  in  English  literature.  The  Tillotsons  and 
Seekers  of  a  later  age  were  alike  distrustful  of  their  readers 
and  of  themselves.  Tame,  cautious,  and  correct,  they  rose 
above  the  Tatlers  and  Spectators  of  their  times,  because  on 
such  themes  it  was  impossible  to  be  frivolous;  but  they 
can  be  hardly  said  to  have  contributed  as  largely  as  Steele 
and  Addison  to  guide  the  opinions,  or  to  form  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  their  generation. 

This  depression  of  theology  was  aided  by  the  state  of 
political  parties  under  the  two  first  princes  of  the  House 
of  Brunswick.  Low  and  High  Church  were  but  other 
names  for  Whigs  and  Tories;  and  while  Hoadley  and  At~ 
terbury  wrangled  about  the  principles  of  the  Revolution,  the 
sacred  subjects  which  formed  the  pretext  of  their  disputes 
were  desecrated  in  the  feelings  of  the  multitude,  who  wit¬ 
nessed  and  enjoyed  the  controversy.  Secure  from  farther 
persecution,  and  deeply  attached  to  the  new  order  of  things, 
the  Dissenters  were  no  longer  roused  to  religious  zeal 
by  invidious  secular  distinctions;  and  Doddington  and 
Watts  lamented  the  decline  of  their  congregations  from  the 
standard  of  their  ancient  piety.  The  former  victims  of  bi¬ 
gotry  had  become  its  proselytes,  and  anathemas  were  di¬ 
rected  against  the  Pope  and  the  Pretender,  with  still  great¬ 
er  acrimony  than  against  the  Evil  One,  with  whom  good 
Protestants  of  all  denominations  associated  them. 

The  theology  of  any  age  at  once  ascertains  and  regulates 
its  moral  stature;  and,  at  the  period  of  which  we  speak, 
the  austere  virtues  of  the  Puritans,  and  the  more  meek  and 
social,  though  not  less  devout  spirit  of  the  Worthies  of  the 
Church  of  England,  if  still  to  be  detected  in  the  recesses 
of  private  life,  were  discountenanced  by  the  general  habits 


60 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


of  society.  The  departure  of  the  more  pure  and  generous 
influences  of  earlier  times  may  be  traced  no  where  more 
clearly  than  in  those  works  of  fiction,  in  which  the  pre¬ 
vailing  profligacy  of  manners  was  illustrated  by  Fielding, 
Sterne,  and  Smollet;  and  proved,  though  with  more  honest 
purposes,  by  Richardson  and  Defoe. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  the  Alma  Mater  of  Laud  and 
Sacheverel  was  nourishing  in  her  bosom  a  little  band  of 
pupils  destined  to  accomplish  a  momentous  revolution  in 
the  national  character.  Wesley  had  already  attained  the 
dawn  of  manhood  when,  in  1714,  his  future  rival  and  coad¬ 
jutor,  George  Whitfield,  was  born  at  a  tavern  in  Gloucester, 
of  which  his  father  was  the  host.  The  death  of  the  elder 
Whitfield  within  two  years  from  that  time,  left  the  child  to 
the  care  of  his  mother,  who  took  upon  herself  the  manage¬ 
ment  of  the  “  Bell  Inn though  as  her  son  has  gratefully 
recorded,  she  “  prudently  kept  him,  in  his  tender  years, 
from  intermeddling  with  the  tavern  business.”  In  such  a 
situation  he  almost  inevitably  fell  into  vices  and  follies, 
which  have  been  exaggerated  as  much  by  the  vehemence 
of  his  own  confessions,  as  by  the  malignity  of  his  enemies. 
They  exhibit  some  curious  indications  of  his  future  cha¬ 
racter.  He  robbed  his  mother,  but  part  of  the  money  was 
given  to  the  poor.  He  stole  books,  but  they  were  books 
of  devotion.  Irritated  by  the  unlucky  tricks  of  his  play¬ 
fellows,  who,  he  says,  in  the  language  of  David,  “  com¬ 
passed  him  about  like  bees,”  he  converted  into  a  prayer 
the  prophetic  imprecation  of  the  Psalmist — “  In  the  name 
of  the  Lord  I  will  destroy  them.”  The  mind  in  which 
devotional  feelings  and  bad  passions  were  thus  strongly 
knit  together,  was  consigned  in  early  youth,  to  the  culture 
of  the  master  of  the  grammar-school  of  St.  Mary  de  Crypt, 
in  his  native  city;  and  there  were  given  the  first  auspices 
of  his  future  eminence.  He  studied  the  English  dramatic 
writers,  and  represented  their  female  characters  with  ap¬ 
plause;  and  when  the  mayor  and  aldermen  were  to  be  ha¬ 
rangued  by  one  of  the  scholars,  the  embryo  field-preacher 
was  selected  to  extol  the  merits,  and  to  gratify  the  taste  of 
their  worships.  His  erratic  propensities  were  developed 
almost  as  soon  as  his  powers  of  elocution.  Wearied  with 
the  studies  of  the  grammar-school,  he  extorted  his  mother’s 
reluctant  consent  to  return  to  the  tavern;  and  there,  he  says, 
“  I  put  on  my  blue  apron  and  my  snuffers,  washed  mops, 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


61 


cleaned  rooms,  and,  in  one  word,  became  professed  and 
common  Drawer  for  nigh  a  year  and  a  half.”  The  tapster 
was,  of  course,  occasionally  tipsy,  and  always  in  request; 
but  as  even  the  flow  of  the  tap  may  not  be  perennial,  he 
found  leisure  to  compose  sermons,  and  stole  from  the  night 
some  hours  for  the  study  of  the  Bible. 

At  the  Bell  Inn  there  dwelt  a  sister-in-law  of  Whitfield’s, 
with  whom  it  was  his  fortune  or  his  fault  to  quarrel;  and 
to  sooth  his  troubled  spirit  he  “  would  retire  and  weep 
before  the  Lord,  as  Hagar  when  flying  from  Sarah.”  From 
the  presence  of  this  Sarah  he  accordingly  fled  to  Bristol, 
and  betook  himself  to  the  study  of  Thomas  a  Kempis;  but 
returning  once  more  to  Gloucester,  exchanged  Divinity  for 
the  drama,  and  then  abandoned  the  dramatists  for  his  Ions1  * 
neglected  school-books.  For  now  had  opened  a  prospect 
inviting  him  to  the  worthy  use  of  those  talents  which  might 
otherwise  have  been  consumed  in  sordid  occupations,  or  in 
some  obscure  and  fruitless  efforts  to  assert  his  native  supe¬ 
riority  to  other  men.  Intelligence  had  reached  his  mother 
that  admission  might  be  obtained  at  Pembroke  College, 
Oxford,  for  her  capricious  and  thoughtful  boy;  and  the  in¬ 
tuitive  wisdom  of  a  mother’s  love  assured  her  that  through 
this  avenue  he  might  advance  to  distinction,  if  not  to  fortune. 

A  few  more  oscillations  between  dissolute  tastes  and  heaven¬ 
ward  desires,  and  the  youth  finally  gained  the  mastery  over 
his  lower  appetites.  From  his  seventeenth  year  to  his  dying 
day  he  lived  amongst  imbittered  enemies  and  jealous  friends, 
without  a  stain  on  his  reputation. 

In  1731  the  gates  of  Pembroke  College  had  finally  closed 
on  the  rude  figure  of  one  of  her  illustrious  sons,  expelled 
by  poverty  to  seek  a  precarious  subsistence,  and  to  earn  a 
lasting  reputation  in  the  obscure  alleys  of  London.  In  the 
following  year  they  were  opened  to  a  pupil  as  ill  provided 
with  this  world’s  wealth  as  Samuel  Johnson,  but  destined 
to  achieve  a  still  more  extensive  and  a  more  enduring 
celebrity.  The  waiter  at  the  Bell  Inn  had  become  a  ser¬ 
vitor  at  Oxford — no  great  advancement  in  the  social  scale  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  habits  of  that  age — yet  a  change  which  con¬ 
ferred  the  means  of  elevation  on  a  mind  too  ardent  to  leave 
them  unimproved.  He  became  the  associate  of  Charles, 
and  the  disciple  of  John  Wesley,  who  had  at  that  time 
taken  as  their  spiritual  guide  the  celebrated  mystic,  William 
Law.  These  future  chiefs  of  a  religious  revolution  were 
6 


02 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


then  “interrogating  themselves  whether  they  had  been  sim¬ 
ple  and  recollected;  whether  they  had  prayed  with  fervour 
Monday,  Wednesday  and  Friday,  and  on  Saturday  noon; 
if  they  had  used  a  collect  at  nine,  twelve  and  three  o’clock; 
duly  meditated  on  Sunday  from  three  to  four  on  Thomas  a 
Kempis,  or  mused  on  Wednesday  and  Friday  from  twelve 
to  one  on  the  Passion.”  But  Quietism,  indigenous  in  the 
East,  is  an  exotic  in  this  cold  and  busy  land  of  ours,  bearing 
at  the  best  but  sorry  fruit,  and  hastening  to  a  premature 
decay.  Never  was  mortal  man  less  fitted  for  the  contem¬ 
plative  state  than  George  Whitfield.  It  was  an  attempt  as 
hopeless  as  that  of  converting  a  balloon  into  an  observatory. 
He  dressed  the  character  indeed  to  admiration,  for  “  he 
thought  it  unbecoming  a  penitent  to  have  his  hair  powdered, 
and  wore  woollen  gloves,  a  patched  gown,  and  dirty  shoes.” 
But  the  sublime  abstractions  which  should  people  the  cell 
and  haunt  the  spirit  of  the  hermit  he  wooed  in  vain.  In 
the  hopeless  attempt  to  do  nothing  but  meditate,  “  the  power 
of  meditating  or  even  of  thinking  was,”  he  says,  “  taken 
from  him.”  Castanza  on  the  “Spiritual  Combat”  advised 
him  to  talk  but  little;  and  “  Satan  said  he  must  not  talk  at 
all.”  The  Divine  Redeemer  had  been  surrounded  in  his 
temptations  by  deserts  and  wild  beasts,  and  to  approach 
this  example  as  closely  as  the  localities  allowed,  Whitfield 
was  accustomed  to  select  Christ  Church  Meadow  as  the 
scene,  and  a  stormy  night  as  the  time  of  his  mental  con¬ 
flicts.  He  prostrated  his  body  on  the  bare  earth,  fasted 
during  Lent,  and  exposed  himself  to  the  cold  till  his  hands 
began  to  blacken,  and  “  by  abstinence  and  inward  struggles 
so  emaciated  his  body  as  to  be  scarcely  able  to  creep  up 
stairs.”  In  this  deplorable  state  he  received  from  the  Wes¬ 
leys  books  and  ghastly  counsels.  His  tutor,  more  wisely, 
sent  him  a  physician,  and  for  seven  weeks  he  laboured  un¬ 
der  a  severe  illness.  It  was,  in  his  own  language,  “  a  glo¬ 
rious  visitation.”  It  gave  him  time  and  composure  to  make 
a  written  record  and  a  penitent  confession  of  his  youthful 
sins — to  examine  the  New  Testament;  to  read  Bishop  Hall’s 
Contemplations;  and  to  seek  by  prayer  for  wisdom  and  tor 
peace.  The  blessings  thus  invoked  were  not  denied.  “  The 
day-star,”  he  says,  “arose  in  my  heart.  The  spirit  of 
mourning  was  taken  from  me.  For  some  time  1  could  not 
avoid  singing  Psalms  wherever  I  was,  but  my  joy  became 
gradually  more  settled.  Thus  were  the  days  of  my  mourn- 
,ing  ended.” 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


63 


And  thus  also  was  ended  his  education. — Before  the 
completion  of  his  twenty-first  year,  Whitfield  returned  to 
Gloucester;  and  such  was  the  fame  of  his  piety  and  talents, 
that  Dr,  Benson,  the  then  Bishop  of  the  Diocess,  offered 
to  dispense,  in  his  favour,  with  the  rule  which  forbade  the 
ordination  of  Deacons  at  so  unripe  an  age.  The  mental 
agitation  which  preceded  his  acceptance  of  this  proposal, 
is  described  in  these  strange  but  graphic  terms  in  one  of 
his  latest  sermons. 

“  I  never  prayed  against  any  corruption  I  had  in  my  life, 
so  much  as  I  did  against  going  into  holy  orders  so  soon  as 
my  friends  were  for  having  me  go.  Bishop  Benson  was 
pleased  to  honour  me  with  peculiar  friendship,  so  as  to 
offer  me  preferment,  or  to  do  any  thing  for  me.  My  friends 
wanted  me  to  mount  the  Church  betimes.  They  wanted 
me  to  knock  my  head  against  the  pulpit  too  young,  but 
how  some  young  men  stand  up  here  and  there  and  preach 
I  do  not  know.  However  it  be  to  them,  God  knows  how 
deep  a  concern  entering  into  the  ministry  and  preaching 
was  to  me.  I  have  prayed  a  thousand  times,  till  the  sweat 
has  dropped  from  my  face  like  rain,  that  God  of  his  infinite 
mercy  would  not  let  me  enter  the  church  till  he  called 
me  to  and  thrust  me  forth  in  his  work.  I  remember  once 
in  Gloucester,  I  know  the  room;  I  look  up  to  the  window 
when  I  am  there,  and  walk  along  the  street.  I  know  the 
window  upon  which  I  have  laid  prostrate.  I  said,  Lord,  I 
cannot  go,  I  shall  be  puffed  up  with  pride,  and  fall  into  the 
condemnation  of  the  Devil.  Lord,  do  not  let  me  go  yet. 
I  pleaded  to  be  at  Oxford  two  or  three  years  more.  I  in¬ 
tended  to  make  one  hundred  and  fifty  sermons,  and  thought 
that  I  would  set  up  with  a  good  stock  in  trade.  I  remem¬ 
ber  praying,  wrestling,  and  striving  with  God.  I  said,  I 
am  undone.  I  am  unfit  to  preach  in  thy  great  name. 
Send  me  not,  Lord — send  me  not  yet.  I  wrote  to  all  my 
friends  in  town  and  country  to  pray  against  the  Bishop's 
solicitation,  but  they  insisted  1  should  go  into  orders  be¬ 
fore  I  was  twenty-two.  After  all  their  solicitations,  these 
words  came  into  my  mind,  ‘  Nothing  shall  pluck  you  out 
of  my  hands;’  they  came  warm  to  my  heart.  Then,  and  not 
till  then,  I  said,  ‘  Lord,  I  will  go;  send  me  when  thou  wilt.’ 
He  was  ordained  accordingly;  and  ‘  when  the  Bishop  laid 
his  hands  upon  my  head,  my  heart,’  he  says,  ‘  was  melted 
down,  and  I  offered  up  my  whole  spirit,  soul,  and  body.’ 


64 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


A  mail  within  whose  bosom  resides  an  oracle  directing 
his  steps  in  the  language  and  with  the  authority  of  inspira¬ 
tion,  had  needs  be  thus  self-devoted  in 'soul  and  body  to 
some  honest  purpose,  if  he  would  not  mistake  the  voice  of 
the  Pythoness  for  that  which  issues  from  the  sanctuary. 
But  the  uprightness  and  inflexible  constancy  of  Whitfield  s 
character  rendered  even  its  superstitions  comparatively 
harmless ;  and  the  sortilege  was  ever  in  favour  of  some 
new  effort  to  accomplish  the  single  object  for  which  he 
henceforward  lived.  The  next  words  which  “  came  to 
his  soul  with  power”  were,  “  Speak  out,  Paul,”  and  never 
was  injunction  more  strictly  obeyed. 

“  Immediately,”  he  says,  “  my  heart  was  enlarged,  and 
I  preached  on  the  Sunday  morning  to  a  very  crowded  audi¬ 
ence  with  as  much  freedom  as  if  I  had  been  a  preacher  for 
some  years.  As  I  proceeded  I  perceived  the  fire  kindled, 
till  at  last,  though  so  young,  and  amidst  a  crowd  of  those 
who  knew  me  in  my  infant  childish  days,  I  trust  I  was 
enabled  to  speak  with  some  degree  of  gospel  authority. 
Some  few  mocked,  but  most  for  the  present  seemed  struck, 
and  I  have  heard  since  that  a  complaint  had  been  made  to 
the  Bishop  that  I  drove  fifteen  mad  by  my  first  sermon. 
The  worthy  Prelate,  as  I  am  informed,  wished  that  the 
madness  might  not  be  forgotten  before  next  Sunday,” 

Thus  early  apprized  of  the  secret  of  his  strength,  his  pro¬ 
found  aspirations  for  the  growth  of  Christianity,  the  delight 
of  exercising  his  rare  powers,  and  the  popular  admiration 
which  rewarded  them,  operating  with  combined  and  cease¬ 
less  force  on  a  mind  impatient  of  repose,  urged  him  into  ex¬ 
ertions  which,  if  not  attested  by  irrefragable  proofs,  might 
appear  incredible  and  fabulous.  It  was  the  statement  of 
one  who  knew  him  well,  and  who  was  incapable  of  wilful 
exaggeration — and  it  is  confirmed  by  his  letters,  journals, 
and  a  whole  cloud  of  witnesses— that  “  in  the  compass  of 
a  single  week,  and  that  for  years,  he  spoke  in  general  forty 
hours,  and  in  very  many  sixty,  and  that  to  thousands;  and 
after  his  labours,  instead  of  taking  any  rest,  he  was  en¬ 
gaged  in  offering  up  prayers  and  intercessions,  with  hymns 
and  spiritual  songs,  as  his  manner  was,  in  every  house  to 
which  he  was  invited.” 

Given,  a  preacher,  who  during  the  passage  of  the  sun 
through  the  ecliptic,  addresses  his  audience  every  seventh 
dav,  in  two  discourses  of  the  dwarfish  size  to  which  ser- 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


65 


mons  attain  in  this  degenerate  age,  and  multiply  his  efforts 
by  forty,  and  you  do  not  reach  the  standard  by  which,  for 
thirty-five  successive  years,  Whitfield  regulated  this  single 
branch  of  his  exertions.  Combine  this  with  the  fervour 
with  which  he  habitually  spoke,  the  want  of  all  aids  to  the 
voice  in  the  fields  and  the  thoroughfares  he  frequented,  and 
the  toil  of  becoming  distinctly  audible  to  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands;  and,  considered  merely  as  a  physical 
phenomenon,  the  result  is  amongst  the  most  curious  of  all 
well  authenticated  marvels.  If  the  time  spent  in  travelling 
from  place  to  place,  and  some  brief  intervals  of  repose  be 
subtracted,  his  whole  life  may  be  said  to  have  been  con¬ 
sumed  in  the  delivery  of  one  continuous  or  scarcely  unin¬ 
terrupted  sermon.  Strange  as  is  such  an  example  of  bodily 
and  mental  energy,  still  stranger  is  the  power  he  possessed 
of  fascinating  the  attention  of  hearers  of  every  rank  of  life 
and  of  every  variety  of  understanding.  Not  only  were  the 
loom,  the  forge,  the  plough,  the  collieries,  and  the  work¬ 
shops,  deserted  at  his  approach,  but  the  spell  was  acknow¬ 
ledged  by  Hume  and  Franklin— by  Pulteney,  Bolingbroke, 
and  Chesterfield — by  maids  of  honour  and  lords  of  the  bed¬ 
chamber.  Such  indeed  was  its  force,  that  when  the  scandal 
could  be  concealed  behind  a  well  adjusted  curtain,  “  e’en 
mitred  ‘auditors’  would  nod  the  head.”  Neither  English 
reserve,  nor  the  theological  discrimination  of  the  Scotch, 
nor  the  callous  nerves  of  the  Slave-dealers  of  America,  nor 
the  stately  self-possession  of  her  aborigines,  could  resist 
the  enchantment.  Never  was  mortal  man  gifted  with  such 
an  incapacity  of  fatiguing  or  of  being  fatigued. 

No  similar  praise  could  be  honestly  awarded  to  Whit¬ 
field’s  present  biographer.  He  has  followed  the  steps  of 
the  great  itinerant  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  in  a  volume 
of  nearly  six  hundred  closely  printed  pages,  compiled  on 
the  principle  that  nothing  can  be  superfluous  in  the  narra¬ 
tive  of  a  man’s  life  which  was  of  any  real  importance  to 
the  man  himself,  or  to  his  associates.  The  chronicle  so 
drawn  up,  illuminated  by  no  gleams  of  philosophy,  human 
or  divine,  and  arranged  on  no  intelligible  method,  is  a  sore 
exercise  for  the  memory  and  the  patience  of  the  reader.  It 
records,  without  selection  or  forbearance,  thirteen  succes¬ 
sive  voyages  across  the  Atlantic— pilgrimages  incalculable 
to  every  part  of  this  island,  and  of  the  North  American  con¬ 
tinent,  from  Georgia  to  Boston — controversies  with  Wesley 

6* 


66 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


on  predestination  and  perfection,  and  with  the  Bishops  on 
still  deeper  mysteries — Chapel  buildings  and  subscriptions 
— preachings  and  the  excitement  which  followed  them — 
and  characteristic  sayings  and  uncharacteristic  letters,  meet¬ 
ings  and  partings,  and  every  other  incident,  great  and  small, 
which  has  been  preserved  by  the  oral  or  written  traditions 
of  Whitfield’s  followers.  His  life  still  remains  to  be  writ¬ 
ten  by  some  one  who  shall  bring  to  the  task  other  qualifi¬ 
cations  than  an  honest  zeal  for  his  fame,  and  a  cordial 
adoption  of  his  opinion^. 

From  the  conflict  with  the  enemies  who  had  threatened 
her  existence,  the  church  militant  turned  to  resist  the  un¬ 
welcome  ally  who  now  menaced  her  repose.  Warburton 
led  the  van,  and  behind  him  many  a  mitred  front  scowled 
on  the  audacious  innovator.  Divested  of  the  logomachies 
which  chiefly  engaged  the  attention  of  the  disputants,  the 
controversy  between  Whitfield  and  the  Bishops  lay  in  a 
narrow  compass.  It  being  mutually  conceded  that  the  vir¬ 
tues  of  the  Christian  life  can  result  only  from  certain  divine 
impulses,  and  that  to  lay  a  claim  to  this  holy  inspiration 
when  its  legitimate  fruits  are  wanting,  is  a  fatal  delusion; 
he  maintained,  and  they  denied,  that  the  person  who  is  the 
subject  of  this  sacred  influence  has  within  his  own  bosom 
an  independent  attestation  of  its  reality.  So  abstruse  a  de¬ 
bate  required  the  zest  of  some  more  pungent  ingredients; 
and  the  polemics  with  whom  Whitfield  had  to  do,  were 
not  such  sciolists  in  their  calling  as  to  be  ignorant  of  the 
necessity  of  rivetting  upon  him  some  epithet  at  once  op¬ 
probrious  and  vague.  While,  therefore,  milder  spirits  ar¬ 
raigned  him  as  an  enthusiast,  Warburton,  with  constitutional 
energy  of  invective,  denounced  him  as  a  fanatic.  In  vain 
he  demanded  a  definition  of  these  reproachful  terms.  To 
have  fixed  their  meaning  would  have  been  to  blunt  their 
edge.  They  afforded  a  solution  at  once  compendious,  ob¬ 
scure,  and  repulsive,  of  whatever  was  remarkable  in  his 
character,  and  have  accompanied  his  name  from  that  time 
to  the  present. 

The  currents  of  life  had  drifted  Warburton  on  divinity 
as  his  profession,  but  nature  designed  him  for  a  satirist; 
and  the  propensity  was  too  strong  to  yield  even  to  the 
study  of  the  Gospel.  From  them  he  might  have  discovered 
the  injustice  of  his  censure;  for  the  real  nature  of  religious 
fanaticism  can  be  learnt  with  equal  clearness  from  no  other 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  A.ND  FROUDE. 


67 


source.  They  tell  of  men  who  compassed  sea  and  land  to 
make  one  proselyte,  that  when  made  they  might  train  him 
up  as  a  persecutor  and  a  bigot;  of  others,  who  erected  se¬ 
pulchral  monuments  to  the  martyrs  of  a  former  age,  while 
unsheathing  the  sword  which  was  to  augment  their  num¬ 
ber;  of  some  who  would  have  called  down  fire  from  heaven 
to  punish  the  inhospitable  city  which  rejected  their  master; 
and  of  those  who  exhausted  their  bodies  with  fasting,  and 
their  minds  with  study,  that  they  might  with  deeper  em¬ 
phasis  curse  the  ignorant  multitude.  They  all  laboured 
under  a  mental  disease,  which,  amongst  fanatics  of  every 
generation,  has  assumed  the  same  distinctive  type.  It  con¬ 
sists  in  an  unhallowed  alliance  of  the  morose  and  vindictive 
passions  with  devotion  or  religious  excitement.  Averting 
the  mental  vision  from  what  is  cheerful,  affectionate,  and 
animating  in  piety,  the  victims  of  this  malady  regard  op¬ 
posing  sects,  not  as  the  children,  but  as  the  enemies  of  God; 
and  while  looking  inward  with  melancholy  alternations  of 
pride  and  self-reproach,  learn  to  contemplate  Deity  itself 
with  but  half-suppressed  aversion.  To  connect  the  name 
of  the  kind  hearted  George  Whitfield  with  such  a  reproach 
as  this!  To  call  on  the  indolent  of  all  future  generations 
who  should  believe  in  Warburton,  to  associate  the  despised 
itinerant  with  the  Dominies,  De  Ranees,  and  Bonners 
of  former  ages!  Truly  the  indignant  prelate  knew  not 
what  manner  of  spirit  he  was  of.  If  ever  philanthropy 
burned  in  the  human  heart  with  a  pure  and  intense  flame, 
embracing  the  whole  family  of  man  in  the  spirit  of  univer¬ 
sal  charity,  that  praise  is  pre-eminently  due  to  Whitfield. 
His  predestinarian  speculations  perplexed  his  mind,  but 
could  not  check  the  expansion  of  his  Catholic  feelings. 
“  He  loved  the  world  that  hated  him.”  He  had  no  prefe¬ 
rences  but  in  favour  of  the  ignorant,  the  miserable,  and  the 
poor.  In  their  cause  he  shrunk  from  no  privation,  and 
declined  neither  insult  nor  hostility.  To  such  wrongs  he 
opposed  the  weapons  of  an  all-enduring  meekness,  and  a 
love  incapable  of  repulse.  The  springs  of  his  benevolence 
were  inexhaustible,  and  could  not  choose  but  flow.  As¬ 
sisted  it  may  have  been  by  natural  disposition,  and  by 
many  an  external  impulse;  but  it  ultimately  reposed  on  the 
fixed  persuasion  that  he  was  engaged  in  a  sacred  duty,  the 
faithful  discharge  of  which  would  be  followed  by  an  im¬ 
perishable  recompense.  With  whatever  undigested  sub- 


68 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


defies  his  religious  creed  was  encumbered,  they  could  not 
hide  from  him,  though  they  might  obscure  the  truth,  that, 
between  the  virtues  of  this  life  and  the  rewards  of  a  future 
state,  the  connexion  is  necessary  and  indissoluble.  Refer¬ 
ring  this  retributive  dispensation  exclusively  to  the  divine 
benevolence,  his  theology  inculcated  humility  while  it  in¬ 
spired  hope.  It  taught  him  self-distrust,  and  reliance  on  a 
strength  superior  to  his  own;  and  instructed  him  in  the 
mystery  which  reconciles  the  elevation  and  the  purity  of 
disinterested  love  with  those  lower  motives  of  action  which 
more  immediately  respect  the  future  advantage  of  the  agent. 
Whatever  else  Whitfield  may  have  been,  a  fanatic,  in  the 
proper  sense  of  that  term,  he  assuredly  was  not. 

The  charge  of  enthusiasm  was  so  ambiguous,  that  it 
might,  with  equal  propriety,  be  understood  as  conveying 
either  commendation  or  reproach.  Hope  is  the  element  in 
which  all  the  great  men  of  the  world  move  and  have  their 
being.  Engaged  in  arduous  and  lofty  designs,  they  must, 
to  a  certain  extent,  live  in  an  imaginary  world,  and  recruit 
their  exhausted  strength  with  ideal  prospects  of  the  success 
which  is  to  repay  their  labours.  But,  like  every  other 
emotion  when  long  indulged,  hope  yields  but  a  precarious 
obedience  to  the  reasoning  powers;  and  reason  herself, 
even  when  most  enlightened,  will  not  seldom  make  a  vo¬ 
luntary  abdication  of  her  sovereignly  in  favour  of  her  pow¬ 
erful  minister; — surrendering  up  to  the  guidance  of  impulse 
a  mind  whose  aims  are  too  high  to  be  fulfilled  under  her 
own  sober  counsels.  For  in  “this  little  state  of  man”  the 
passions  must  be  the  free  subjects,  not  the  slaves  of  the 
understanding;  and  while  they  obey  her  precepts,  should 
impart  to  her  some  of  their  own  spirit,  warmth,  and  ener¬ 
gy.  It  is,  however,  essential  to  a  well  constituted  nature, 
that  the  subordination  of  the  lower  to  the  superior  faculties, 
though  occasionally  relaxed,  should  be  habitually  main¬ 
tained.  Used  with  due  abstinence,  hope  acts  as  a  health¬ 
ful  tonic;  intern perately  indulged,  as  an  enervating  opiate. 
The  visions  of  future  triumph,  which  at  first  animated  ex¬ 
ertion,  if  dwelt  upon  too  intently,  will  usurp  the  place  of 
the  stern  reality,  and  noble  objects  will  be  contemplated, 
not  for  their  own  inherent  worth,  but  on  account  of  the 
day-dreams  they  engender.  Thus,  imagination  makes  one 
man  a  hero,  another  a  somnambulist,  and  a  third  a  lunatic: 
while  it  renders  them  all  enthusiasts.  And  thus  are  classed 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


69 


together,  under  one  generic  term,  characters  wide  asunder 
as  the  poles,  and  standing  at  the  top  and  at  the  bottom  of 
the  scale  of  human  intellect;  and  the  same  epithet  is  used 
to  describe  Francis  Bacon  and  Emanuel  Swedenborg. 

Religious  rnen  are,  for  obvious  reasons,  more  subject 
than  others  to  enthusiasm,  both  in  its  invigorating  and  in 
its  morbid  forms.  They  are  aware  that  there  is  about  their 
path  and  about  their  bed  a  real  presence,  which  yet  no 
sense  attests.  They  revere  a  spiritual  inmate  of  the  soul, 
of  whom  they  have  no  definite  consciousness.  They  live 
in  communion  with  one,  whose  nature  is  chiefly  defined 
by  negatives.  They  are  engaged  in  duties  which  can  be 
performed  acceptably  only  at  the  bidding  of  the  deepest 
affections.  They  rest  their  faith  on  prophetic  and  miracu¬ 
lous  suspensions,  in  times  past,  of  the  usual  course  of 
nature;  and  derive  their  hopes  and  fears  from  the  dim  sha¬ 
dows  cast  by  things  eternal  on  the  troubled  mirror  of  this 
transient  scene.  What  wonder  if,  under  the  incumbent 
weight  of  such  thoughts  as  these,  the  course  of  active  virtue 
be  too  often  arrested;  or  if  a  religious  romance  sometimes 
takes  the  place  of  contemplative  piety,  and  the  fictitious 
gradually  supersedes  the  real;  and  a  world  of  dreams,  a 
system  of  opinions,  and  a  code  of  morals,  which  religion 
disavows,  occasionally  shed  their  narcotic  influence  over  a 
spirit  excited  and  oppressed  by  the  shapeless  forms  and 
the  fearful  powers  with  which  it  is  conversant? 

Both  in  the  more  and  in  the  less  favourable  sense  of  the 
expression,  Whitfield  was  an  enthusiast.  The  thraldom  of 
the  active  to  the  meditative  powers  was  indeed  abhorrent 
from  his  nature;  but  he  was  unable  to  maintain  a  just 
equilibrium  between  them.  His  life  was  one  protracted 
calenture;  and  the  mental  fever  discoloured  and  distorted 
the  objects  of  his  pursuits.  Without  intellectual  disci¬ 
pline  or  sound  learning,  he  confounded  his  narrow  range 
of  elementary  topics  with  the  comprehensive  scheme  and 
science  of  divinity.  Leaping  over  the  state  of  pupillage, 
he  became  at  once  a  teacher  and  a  dogmatist.  The  les¬ 
sons  which  he  never  drew  from  books,  were  never  taught 
him  by  men.  He  allowed  himself  no  leisure  for  social  in¬ 
tercourse  with  his  superiors,  or  with  his  equals;  but  under¬ 
went  the  debilitating  effects  of  conversing  almost  exclu¬ 
sively  with  those  who  sat  as  disciples  at  his  feet.  Their 
homage,  and  the  impetuous  tumult  of  his  career,  left  him 


70 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


but  superficially  acquainted  with  himself.  Unsuspicious 
of  his  own  ignorance,  and  exposed  to  flattery  far  more 
intoxicating  than  the  acclamations  of  the  theatre,  he  laid 
the  foundations  of  a  new  religious  system  with  less  of  pro¬ 
found  thought,  and  in  a  greater  penury  of  theological  re¬ 
search,  than  had  ever  fallen  to  the  lot  of  a  reformer  or 
heresiarch  before.  The  want  of  learning  was  concealed 
under  the  dazzling  veil  of  popular  eloquence,  and  supplied 
by  the  assurance  of  Divine  illumination;  and  the  spiritual 
influence  on  which  he  thus  relied  was  little  else  than  a 
continually  recurring  miracle.  It  was  not  a  power  like 
that  which  acts  throughout  the  material  world — the  unseen 
and  inaudible  source  of  life,  sustaining,  cementing,  and  in¬ 
vigorating  all  things,  hiding  itself  from  the  heedless  beneath 
(he  subordinate  agency  it  employs,  and  disclosed  to  the 
thoughtful  by  his  prolific  and  plastic  energies.  The  access 
of  the  Sacred  presence,  which  Whitfield  acknowledged, 
was  perceptible  by  an  inward  consciousness,  and  was  not 
merely  different,  but  distinguishable  from  the  movements 
of  that  intellectual  and  sensitive  mechanism  of  his  own 
nature,  by  means  of  which  it  operated.  He  discerned  it 
not  only  in  the  growth  of  the  active  and  passive  virtues, 
and  in  progressive  strength  and  wisdom  and  peace,  but  in 
sudden  impulses  which  visited  his  bosom,  and  unexpected 
suggestions  which  directed  his  path.  A  truth  of  all  others 
the  most  consolatory  and  the  most  awful,  was  thus  de¬ 
graded  almost  to  a  level  with  superstitions,  which,  in  their 
naked  form,  no  man  wrould  have  more  vehemently  dis¬ 
claimed;  and  the  great  mystery  which  blends  together  the 
human  and  the  divine  in  the  Christian  dispensation,  lost 
much  of  its  sublime  character,  and  with  it  much  of  its  sa¬ 
lutary  influence. 

It  was  indeed  impossible  that  a  mind  feeding  upon  such 
visions  as  he  invited  and  cherished  should  entirely  escape 
their  practical  mischief.  He  would  have  rejected  with  horror 
the  impious  dream  that  the  indwelling  Deity  would  absolve 
him  from  any  obligation  of  justice,  mercy,  or  truth.  Yet 
he  could  persuade  himself  that  he  enjoyed  a  dispensation 
from  the  duty  of  canonical  obedience  to  his  ecclesiastical 
superiors.  His  revolt  against  the  authority  of  the  Church 
of  which  he  was  a  presbyter  is  at  once  avowed  and  de¬ 
fended  by  his  present  biographer.  “  If,”  he  says,  “  a  bishop 
did  good  or  allowed  good  to  be  done,  Whitfield  venerated 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


71 


him  and  his  office  too;  but  he  despised  both  whenever  they 
were  hostile  to  truth  or  zeal — I  have  no  objection  to  say, 
whenever  they  were  hostile  to  his  own  sentiments  and 
measures.  What  honest  man  would  respect  an  unjust 
judge,  or  an  ignorant  physician,  because  of  their  profes¬ 
sional  titles?  It  is  high  time  to  put  an  end  to  this  non¬ 
sense.” 

Mr.  Philip’s  boast  is  not,  or  at  least  should  not  be,  that 
he  is  well  found  in  the  principles  of  casuistry.  He  is  no 
Ductor  Dubitantium ,  but  a  spiritual  pugilist,  who  uses 
his  pen  as  a  cudgel.  But,  whatever  may  be  the  value  of 
hard  words,  they  are  not  sufficient  to  adjust  such  a  ques¬ 
tion  as  this.  Under  sanctions  of  the  most  awful  solemnity, 
Whitfield  had  bound  himself  to  submit  to  the  lawful  com¬ 
mands  of  his  bishop.  His  “measures,”  being  opposed  to 
the  law  ecclesiastical,  were  interdicted  by  his  diocesan; 
but,  his  “  sentiments  ”  telling  him  that  he  was  right,  and  the 
bishop  wrong,  the  vow  of  obedience  was,  it  seems,  can¬ 
celled.  If  so,  it  was  but  an  impious  mockery  to  make  or 
to  receive  it.  If  it  be  really  “nonsense”  to  respect  so 
sacred  an  engagement,  then  is  there  less  sense  than  has 
usually  been  supposed  in  good  faith  and  plain  dealing. 
Even  on  the  hazardous  assumption  that  the  allegiance  vo¬ 
luntarily  assumed  by  the  clergy  of  the  Anglican  church  is 
dissoluble  at  the  pleasure  of  the  inferior  party,  it  is  at  least 
evident  that,  as  an  honest  man,  Whitfield  was  bound  to 
abandon  the  advantages  when  he  repudiated  the  duties  of 
the  relation  in  which  he  stood  to  his  bishop.  But,  “de¬ 
spising  ”  the  episcopal  office,  he  still  kept  his  station  in  the 
episcopal  church;  and,  if  he  had  no  share  in  her  emolu¬ 
ments,  continued  at  least  to  enjoy  the  rank,  the  worship, 
and  the  influence  which  attend  her  ministers.  In  the  midst 
of  his  revolt  he  performed  her  offices,  and  ministered  in 
her  temples,  as  often  as  opportunity  offered.  It  was  the 
dishonest  proceeding  of  a  good  man  bewildered  by  dreams 
of  the  special  guidance  of  a  Divine  Monitor,  The  apology 
is  the  error  of  an  honest  man  led  astray  by  a  sectarian 
spirit. 

The  sinister  influence  of  Whitfield’s  imagination  on  his 
opinions,  and  through  them  on  his  conduct,  may  be  illustrated 
by  another  example.  He  not  only  became  the  purchaser  of 
slaves,  but  condemned  the  restriction  which  at  that  time  for¬ 
bade  their  introduction  into  Georgia.  There  is  extant,  in 


72 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


his  hand-writing,  an  inventory  of  the  effects  at  the  Orphan 
House,  in  that  province,  in  which  these  miserable  captives 
take  their  place  between  the  cattle  and  the  carts.  “  Blessed 
be  God,”  he  exclaimed,  “for  the  increase  of  the  negroes. 
I  entirely  approve  of  reducing  the  Orphan  House  as  low  as 
possible,  and  I  am  determined  to  take  no  more  than  the 
plantation  will  maintain  till  I  can  buy  more  negroes.”  It 
is  true  that  it  was  only  as  founder  of  this  asylum  for  des¬ 
titute  children  that  he  made  these  purchases;  and  true,  that 
in  these  wretched  bondsmen  he  recognised  immortal  be¬ 
ings  for  whose  eternal  welfare  he  laboured;  and  it  is  also 
true  that  the  morality  of  his  age  was  lax  on  the  subject. 
But  the  American  Quakers  were  already  bearing  testimony 
against  the  guilt  of  slavery  and  the  slave  trade;  and  even 
had  they  been  silent,  so  eminent  a  teacher  of  Christianity 
as  Whitfield,  could  not,  without  censure,  have  so  far  de¬ 
scended  from  Scriptural  to  conventional  virtue. 

To  measure  such  a  man  as  George  Whitfield  by  the 
standards  of  refined  society  might  seem  a  very  strange,  if 
not  a  ludicrous  attempt.  Yet,  as  Mr.  Philip  repeatedly, 
and  with  emphasis,  ascribes  to  him  the  character  of  a  “  gen¬ 
tleman,”  it  must  be  stated  that  he  was  guilty  of  high  crimes 
and  misdemeanours  against  the  laws  of  that  aristocratic 
commonwealth  in  which  the  assertion  of  social  equality,  and 
the  nice  observance  of  the  privileges  of  sex  and  rank,  are 
so  curiously  harmonized.  Such  was  his  want  of  animal 
courage,  that  in  the  vigour  of  his  days  he  could  tamely  ac¬ 
quiesce  in  a  severe  personal  chastisement,  and  fly  to  the 
hold  of  his  vessel  for  safety  at  the  prospect  of  an  approach¬ 
ing  sea-fight.  Such  was  his  failure  in  self-respect,  that  a 
tone  of  awkward  adulation  distinguishes  his  letters  to  the 
ladies  of  high  degree  who  partook  and  graced  his  triumph. 
But  his  capital  offence  against  the  code  of  manners  was  the 
absence  of  that  pudicity  which  shrinks  from  exposing  to 
public  gaze  the  deepest  emotions  of  the  heart.  In  Journals 
originally  divulged,  and  at  last  published  by  himself,  and 
throughout  his  voluminous  correspondence,  he  is  “naked 
and  is  not  ashamed.”  Some  very  coarse  elements  must 
have  entered  into  the  composition  of  a  man  who  could  thus 
scatter  abroad  disclosures  of  the  secret  communings  of  his 
spirit  with  his  Maker. 

Akin  to  this  fault  is  his  seeming  unconsciousness  of  the 
oppressive  majesty  of  the  topics  with  which  he  was  habit- 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


73 


ually  occupied.  The  seraph  in  the  prophetic  vision  was 
arrayed  with  wings,  of  which  some  were  given  to  urge  his 
flight,  and  others  to  cover  his  face.  Vigorous  as  were  the 
pinions  with  which  Whitfield  moved,  he  appears  to  have 
been  unprovided  with  those  beneath  which  his  eyes  should 
have  shrunk  from  too  familiar  a  contemplation  of  the  inef¬ 
fable  glory.  Where  prophets  and  apostles  “stood  trem¬ 
bling,”  he  is  at  his  ease;  where  they  adored,  he  declaims. 
This  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  besetting  sins  of  licentiates  in 
divinity.  But  few  ever  moved  among  the  infinitudes  and 
eternities  of  invisible  things  with  less  embarrassment  or 
with  less  of  silent  awe.  Illustrations  might  be  drawn  from 
every  part  of  his  writings,  but  hardly  without  committing 
the  irreverence  we  condemn. 

To  the  lighter  graces  of  taste  and  fancy  Whitfield  had 
no  pretension.  He  wandered  from  shore  to  shore  unob¬ 
servant  of  the  wonders  of  art  and  nature,  and  the  strange 
varieties  of  men  and  manners  which  solicited  his  notice. 
In  sermons  in  which  no  resource  within  his  reach  is  neg¬ 
lected,  there  is  scarcely  a  trace  to  be  found  of  such  objects 
having  met  his  eye  cr  arrested  his  attention.  The  poetry 
of  the  inspired  volume  awakens  in  him  no  corresponding 
raptures;  and  the  rhythmical  quotations  which  overspread 
Iris  letters  never  rise  above  the  cantilena  of  the  tabernacle. 
In  polite  literature,  in  physical  and  moral  science,  he  never 
advanced  much  beyond  the  standard  of  the  grammar-school 
of  St.  Mary  de  Crypt.  Even  as  a  theologian,  he  has  no 
claims  to  erudition.  He  appears  to  have  had  no  Hebrew 
and  little  Greek,  and  to  have  studied  neither  ecclesiastical 
antiquity  nor  the  great  divines  of  modern  times.  His  read¬ 
ing  seems  to  have  been  confined  to  a  few,  and  those  not 
the  most  considerable,  of  the  works  of  the  later  noncon¬ 
formists.  Neither  is  it  possible  to  assign  him  a  place 
among  profound  or  original  thinkers.  He  was,  in  fact,  al¬ 
most  an  uneducated  man;  and  the  powers  of  his  mind  were 
never  applied,  and  perhaps  could  not  have  been  bent  suc¬ 
cessfully,  either  to  the  acquisition  of  abstruse  knowledge  or 
to  the  enlargement  of  its  boundaries.  “Let  the  name  of 
George  Whitfield  perish  if  God  be  glorified,”  was  his  own 
ardent  and  sincere  exclamation.  His  disciples  will  hardly 
acquiesce  in  their  teacher’s  self-abasement,  but  will  resent, 
as  injurious  to  him  and  to  their  cause,  the  imputations  o« 
enthusiasm,  of  personal  timidity,  of  irreverence  and  coarse- 
7 


74 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


ness  of  mind,  of  ignorance  and  of  a  mediocrity  or  absence 
of  the  powers  of  fancy,  invention  and  research.  But  the 
apotheosis  of  saints  is  no  less  idolatrous  than  that  of  he¬ 
roes;  and  they  have  not  imbibed  Whitfield’s  spirit  who 
cannot  brook  to  be  told  that  he  had  his  share  of  the  faults 
and  infirmities  which  no  man  more  solemnly  ascribed  to 
the  whole  human  race. 

Such,  however,  was  his  energy  and  self-devotion,  that 
even  the  defects  of  his  character  were  rendered  subservient 
to  the  one  end  for  which  he  lived.  From  the  days  of  Paul 
of  Tarsus  and  Martin  Luther  to  our  own,  history  records 
the  career  of  no  man  who,  with  a  less  alloy  of  motives  ter¬ 
minating  in  self,  or  of  passions  breaking  loose  from  the 
control  of  reason,  concentrated  all  the  faculties  of  his  soul 
with  such  intensity  and  perseverance  for  the  accomplishment 
of  one  great  design.  He  belonged  to  that  rare  variety  of 
the  human  species  of  which  it  has  been  said  that  the  liber¬ 
ties  of  mankind  depend  on  their  inability  to  combine  in 
erecting  a  universal  monarchy.  With  nerves  incapable  of 
fatigue,  and  a  buoyant  confidence  in  himself,  which  no  au¬ 
thority,  neglect,  or  opposition  could  abate,  opposing  &  pachy¬ 
dermatous  front  to  all  the  missiles  of  scorn  and  contumely, 
and  yet  exquisitely  sensitive  to  the  affection  which 
cheered,  and  the  applause  which  rewarded  his  labours,  un¬ 
embarrassed  by  the  learning  which  reveals  difficulties,  or 
the  meditative  powers  which  suggest  doubts;  with  an  insa¬ 
tiable  thirst  for  active  occupation,  and  an  unhesitating  faith 
in  whatever  cause  he  undertook;  he  might  have  been  one  of 
the  most  dangerous  enemies  of  the  peace  and  happiness  of 
the  world,  if  powers  so  formidable  in  their  possible  abuse 
had  not  been  directed  to  a  beneficent  end.  Judged  by  the 
wisdom  which  is  of  the  earth,  earthy,  Whitfield  would  be 
pronounced  a  man  whose  energy  ministered  to  a  vulgar 
ambition,  of  which  the  triumph  over  his  ecclesiastical  su¬ 
periors,  and  the  admiration  of  unlettered  multitudes,  were 
the  object  and  the  recompense.  Estimated  by  those  whose 
religions  opinions  and  observances  are  derived  from  him 
by  hereditary  descent,  he  is  nothing  less  than  an  apostle, 
inspired  in  the  latter  ages  of  the  Church  to  purify  her  faith 
and  to  reform  her  morals.  A  more  impartial  survey  of  his 
life  and  writings  may  suggest  the  conclusion,  that  the  ho¬ 
mage  of  admiring  crowds,  and  the  blandishments  of  courtly 
dames,  were  neither  unwelcome  nor  unsolicited;  that  a  hie- 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


75 


rarehy  subdued  to  inaction,  if  not  to  silence,  gratified  his 
self-esteem:  and  that,  when  standing  on  what  he  delighted 
to  call  his  “throne,”  the  current  of  devout  and  holy 
thoughts  was  not  uncontaminated  by  the  admixture  of  some 
human  exultation.  But  ill  betide  him  who  delights  in  the 
too  curious  dissection  of  the  motives  of  others,  or  even  of 
his  own.  Such  anatomists  breathe  an  impure  air,  and  un¬ 
consciously  contract  a  sickly  mental  habit.  Whitfield  was 
a  great  and  a  holy  man;  among  the  foremost  of  the  heroes 
of  philanthropy,  and  as  a  preacher  without  a  superior  or  a 
rival. 

If  eloquence  be  justly  defined  by  the  emotions  it  excites, 
or  by  the  activity  it  quickens,  the  greatest  orator  of  our 
times  was  he  who  first  announced  the  victory  of  Waterloo 
— if  that  station  be  not  rather  due  to  the  learned  President 
of  the  College  of  Physicians,  who  daily  makes  the  ears  to 
tingle  of  those  who  listen  to  his  prognostics.  But  the  con¬ 
verse  of  the  rule  may  be  more  readily  admitted,  and  we  may 
confidently  exclude  from  the  list  of  eloquent  speakers  him 
whose  audience  is  impassive  w'hilst  headdresses  them,  and 
inactive  afterwards.  Every  seventh  day  a  great  company 
of  preachers  raise  their  voices  in  the  land  to  detect  our 
sins,  to  explain  our  duty,  to  admonish,  to  alarm  and  to  con¬ 
sole.  Compare  the  prodigious  extent  of  this  apparatus  with 
its  perceptible  results,  and,  inestimable  as  they  are,  who 
will  deny  that  they  disappointed  the  hopes  which  antece¬ 
dently  to  experience,  the  least  sanguine  would  have  in¬ 
dulged?  The  preacher  has,  indeed,  no  novelties  to  commu¬ 
nicate.  His  path  has  been  trodden  hard  and  dry  by  constant 
use;  yet  he  speaks  as  an  ambassador  from  Heaven,  and  his 
hearers  are  frail,  sorrowing,  perplexed  and  dying  men. 
The  highest  interests  of  both  are  at  stake.  The  preacher’s 
eye  rests  on  his  manuscript;  the  hearer’s  turns  to  the  clock; 
the  half  hour  glass  runs  out  its  sand;  and  the  portals  close 
on  well-dressed  groups  of  critics,  looking  for  all  the  world 
as  if  just  dismissed  from  a  lecture  on  the  tertiary  strata. 

Taking  his  stand  on  some  rising  knoll,  his  tall  and 
graceful  figure  dressed  with  elaborate  propriety,  and  com¬ 
posed  into  an  easy  and  commanding  attitude,  Whitfield’s 
clear  blue  eye  ranged  over  thousands,  and  tens  of  thou¬ 
sands,  drawm  up  in  close  files  on  the  plain  below,  or  clus¬ 
tering  into  masses  on  every  adjacent  eminence.  A  “rabble 
rout”  hung  on  the  skirts  of  the  mighty  host;  and  the  feel- 


76 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


ings  of  the  devout  were  disturbed  by  the  scurrile  jests  of 
the  illiterate,  and  the  cold  sarcasms  of  the  more  polished 
spectators  of  their  worship.  But  the  rich  and  varied  tones 
of  a  voice  of  unequalled  depth  and  compass  quickly  si¬ 
lenced  every  ruder  sound — as  in  rapid  succession  its  ever- 
changing  melodies  passed  from  the  calm  of  simple  narra¬ 
tive,  to  the  measured  distinctness  of  argument,  to  the  ve¬ 
hemence  of  reproof,  and  the  pathos  of  heavenly  consola¬ 
tion,  “  Sometimes  the  preacher  wept  exceedingly,  stamped 
loudly  and  passionately,  and  was  frequently  so  overcome  that 
for  a  few  seconds  one  would  suspect  he  could  never  reco¬ 
ver,  and,  when  he  did,  nature  required  some  little  time  to 
compose  herself.”  In  words  originally  applied  to  one  of 
the  first  German  Reformers — vividus  vultus ,  vividi  oculi, 
vividce  manus ,  denique  omnia  vivida.  The  agitated  as¬ 
sembly  caught  the  passions  of  the  speaker,  and  exulted, 
wept,  or  trembled  at  his  bidding.  He  stood  before  them, 
in  popular  belief,  a  persecuted  man,  spurned  and  rejected 
by  lordly  prelates,  yet  still  a  presbyter  of  the  Church,  and 
clothed  with  her  authority;  his  meek  and  lowly  demeanour 
chastened  and  elevated  by  the  conscious  grandeur  of  the 
apostolic  succession.  The  thoughtful  gazed  earnestly  on 
the  scene  of  solemn  interest,  pregnant  with  some  strange 
and  enduring  influence  on  the  future  condition  of  mankind. 
But  the  wise  and  the  simple  alike  yielded  to  the  enchant¬ 
ment;  and  the  thronging  multitude  gave  utterance  to  their 
emotions  in  every  form  in  which  nature  seeks  relief  from 
feeling  too  strong  for  mastery. 

Whitfield  had  cultivated  the  histrionic  art  to  a  perfection 
which  has  rarely  been  obtained  by  any  who  have  worn  the 
sock  or  the  buskin.  Foote  and  Garrick  were  his  frequent 
hearers,  and  brought  away  with  them  the  characteristic  and 
very  just  remark,  that  “  his  oratory  was  not  at  its  full  height 
until  he  had  repeated  a  discourse  forty  times.”  The  tran¬ 
sient  delirium  of  Franklin — attested  by  the  surrender  on 
one  occasion  of  all  the  contents  of  his  purse  at  a  “  charity 
sermon,”  and  by  the  Quaker’s  refusal  to  lend  more  to  a 
man  who  had  lost  his  wits — did  not  prevent  his  investigating 
the  causes  of  this  unwonted  excitement.  “  I  came,”  he 
says,  “by  hearing  him  often,  to  distinguish  between  ser¬ 
mons  newly  composed  and  those  he  had  preached  often  in 
the  course  of  his  travels.  His  delivery  of  the  latter  was 
so  improved  by  frequent  repetition,  that  every  accent,  every 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROTJDE. 


77 


emphasis,  every  modulation  of  the  voice  was  so  perfectly 
timed,  that,  without  being  interested  in  the  subject,  one 
could  not  help  being  pleased  with  the  discourse — a  pleasure 
of  much  the  same  kind  as  that  received  from  an  excellent 
piece  of  music.” 

The  basis  of  the  singular  dominion  which  was  thus  ex¬ 
ercised  by  Whitfield  during  a  period  equal  to  that  assigned 
by  ordinary  calculation  for  the  continuance  of  human  life, 
would  repay  a  more  careful  investigation  than  we  have  space 
or  leisure  to  attempt.  Amongst  subordinate  influences,  the 
faintest  of  all  is  that  which  may  have  been  occasionally 
exercised  over  the  more  refined  and  sensitive  members  of 
his  congregations  by  the  romantic  scenery  in  which  they 
assembled.  But  the  tears  shaping  “  white  gutters  down 
the  black  faces  of  the  colliers,  black  as  they  came  out  of 
the  coal  pits,”  were  certainly  not  shed  under  any  over¬ 
whelming  sense  of  the  picturesque.  The  preacher  himself 
appears  to  have  felt  and  courted  this  excitement.  “  The 
open  firmament  above  me,  the  prospect  of  the  adjacent  fields, 
to  which  sometimes  was  added  the  solemnity  of  the  ap¬ 
proaching  evening,  was,”  he  says,  “  almost  too  much  for 
me.”  But  a  far  more  effectual  resource  was  found  in  the 
art  of  diverting  into  a  new  and  unexpected  channel,  the 
feelings  of  a  multitude  already  brought  together  with  ob- 
jects  the  most  strangely  contrasted  to  his  own.  Journeying 
to  Wales,  he  passes  over  Hampton  Common,  and  finds 
himself  surrounded  by  twelve  thousand  people  collected  to 
see  a  man  hung  in  chains,  and  an  extempore  pulpit  is  im¬ 
mediately  provided  within  sight  of  this  deplorable  object. 
On  another  similar  occasion,  the  wretched  culprit  was  per¬ 
mitted  to  steal  an  hour  from  the  eternity  before  him,  while 
listening,  or  seeming  to  listen,  to  a  sermon  delivered  by 
Whitfield  to  himself  and  to  the  spectators  of  his  approach¬ 
ing  doom.  He  reaches  Basingstroke,  when  the  inhabitants 
are  engaged  in  all  the  festivities  of  a  country  fair,  and  thus 
records  the  use  he  made  of  so  tempting  an  opportunity. 
“  As  I  passed  on  horseback  I  saw  the  stage,  and  as  I  rode 
further  I  met  divers  coming  to  the  revel,  which  affected  me 
so  much  that  I  had  no  rest  in  my  spirit,  and  therefore 
having  asked  counsel  of  God,  and  perceiving  an  unusual 
warmth  and  power  enter  into  my  soul,  though  I  was  gone 
above  a  mile,  I  could  not  bear  to  see  so  many  dear  souls 
for  whom  Christ  had  died  ready  to  perish,  and  no  minister 

•7* 


78 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


or  magistrate  to  interpose;  upon  this,  I  told  my  dear  fellow- 
travellers  that  I  was  resolved  to  follow  the  example  of 
Howell  Harris  in  Wales,  and  bear  my  testimony  against 
such  lying  vanities,  let  the  consequences  to  my  own  pri¬ 
vate  person  be  what  they  would.  They  immediately  as¬ 
senting,  I  rode  back  to  the  town,  got  upon  the  stage  erected 
for  the  wrestlers,  and  began  to  show  them  the  error  of  their 
ways.” 

The  often  told  tale  of  Whitfield’s  controversy  with  the 
Merry-Andrew  at  Moorfields,  still  more  curiously  illustrates 
the  skill  and  intrepidity  with  which  he  contrived  to  divert 
to  his  own  purposes  an  excitement  running  at  high  tide 
in  the  opposite  direction.  The  following  is  an  extract  from 
Ills  own  narrative  of  the  encounter. 

“  For  many  years,  from  one  end  of  Moorfields  to  the 
other,  booths  of  all  kinds  have  been  erected  for  mountebanks, 
players,  puppet-shows,  and  such  like.  With  a  heart  bleeding 
with  compassion  for  so  many  thousands  led  captive  by  the 
devil  at  his  will,  on  Whit-Monday,  at  six  o’clock  in  the 
morning,  attended  by  a  large  congregation  of  praying  peo¬ 
ple,  I  ventured  to  lift  up  a  standard  amongst  them,  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Perhaps  there  were  about  ten 
thousand  in  waiting,  not  for  me,  but  for  Satan’s  instruments 
to  amuse  them.  Glad  was  I  to  find  that  1  had  for  once,  as 
it  were,  got  the  start  of  the  devil.  I  mounted  my  field  pul¬ 
pit;  almost  all  flocked  immediately  around  it;  I  preached 
on  these  words — “As  Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the 
wilderness,”  &c.  They  gazed,  they  listened,  they  wept, 
and  I  believe  that  many  felt  themselves  stung  with  deep 
conviction  for  their  past  sins.  All  was  hushed  and  solemn. 
Being  thus  encouraged  I  ventured  out  again  at  noon.  The 
whole  fields  seemed,  in  a  bad  sense  of  the  word,  all  white, 
ready  not  for  the  Redeemer’s  but  for  Beelzebub’s  harvest. 
All  his  agents  were  in  full  motion.  Drummers,  trumpeters, 
Merry-Andrews,  masters  of  puppet-shows,  exhibitions  of 
wild  beasts,  players,  &c.,  all  busy  in  entertaining  their  re¬ 
spective  auditors.  I  suppose  there  could  not  be  less  than 
twenty  or  thirty  thousand  people.  My  pulpit  was  fixed 
on  the  opposite  side,  and  immediately,  to  their  great  mor¬ 
tification,  they  found  the  number  of  their  attendants  sadly 
lessened.  Judging  that,  like  St.  Paul,  I  should  now  be 
called,  as  it  were,  to  fight  with  beasts  at  Ephesus,  I  preached 
from  these  words,  “  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians.” 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


79 


You  may  easily  guess  that  there  was  some  noise  among 
the  craftsmen,  and  that  I  was  honoured  with  having  a  few 
stones,  dirt,  rotten  eggs  and  pieces  of  dead  cats  thrown  at 
me,  whilst  engaged  in  calling  them  from  their  favourite  but 
lying  vanities.  My  soul  was  indeed  among  lions,  but  far 
the  greatest  part  of  my  congregation,  which  was  very  large, 
seemed  for  awhile  turned  into  lambs.  This  Satan  could 
not  brook.  One  of  his  choicest  servants  was  exhibiting, 
trumpeting  on  a  large  stage,  but  as  soon  as  the  people  saw 
me  in  my  black  robes  and  my  pulpit,  I  think  all  to  a  man 
left  him  and  ran  to  me.  For  awhile  I  was  enabled  to  lift 
my  voice  like  a  trumpet,  and  many  heard  the  joyful  sound. 
God’s  people  kept  praying,  and  the  enemy’s  agents  made 
a  kind  of  roaring  at  some  distance  from  our  camp.  At 
length  they  approached  near,  and  the  Merry-Andrew  got 
up  on  a  man’s  shoulders,  and,  advancing  near  the  pulpit, 
attempted  to  lash  me  with  a  long  heavy  whip  several  times, 
but  always  with  the  violence  of  his  motion  tumbled  down. 
I  think  I  continued  in  praying,  preaching  and  singing  (for 
the  noise  was  too  great  to  preach,)  for  about  three  hours. 
We  then  retired  to  the  Tabernacle,  with  my  pockets  full 
of  notes  from  persons  brought  under  concern,  and  read 
them  amidst  the  praises  and  spiritual  acclamations  of  thou¬ 
sands.  Three  hundred  and  fiftv  awakened  souls  were 
received  in  one  day,  and  I  believe  the  number  of  notes 
exceeded  a  thousand.” 

The  propensity  to  mirth  which,  in  common  with  all  men 
of  robust  mental  constitution,  Whitfield  possessed  in  an 
unusual  degree,  was,  like  every  thing  else  belonging  to  him, 
compelled  to  minister  to  the  interest  and  success  of  his 
preaching;  but  however  much  his  pleasantries  may  attest 
the  buoyancy  of  his  mind,  it  would  be  difficult  to  assign 
them  any  other  praise.  Oscillating  in  spirit  as  well  as  in 
body,  between  Drury-Lane  and  the  Tabernacle,  Shuter, 
the  comedian,  attended  in  Tottenham  Court  Road  during 
the  run  of  his  successful  performance  of  the  character  of 
Ramble,  and  was  greeted  with  the  following  apostrophe — 
“  And  thou,  poor  Ramble,  who  hast  so  long  rambled  from 
Him,  come  thou  also.  Oh!  end  thy  ramblings,  and  come 
to  Jesus.”  The  preacher  in  this  instance  descended  not  a 
little  below  the  level  of  the  player. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  crown  of  martyrdom  was 
a  prize  for  which  Roman  Catholics  alone  were  permitted 


80 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


to  contend,  and  Whitfield  was  unable  to  gain  the  influence 
which  he  would  have  derived  from  the  stake,  from  a  prison 
or  a  confiscation.  Conscious,  however,  of  the  importance 
of  such  sufferings,  he  persuaded  himself  and  desired  to  con¬ 
vince  the  world,  that  he  had  to  endure  them.  The  Bishops 
were  persecutors,  because  they  repelled  with  some  acri¬ 
mony  his  attacks  on  their  authority  and  reputation.  The 
mob  were  persecutors,  because  they  pelted  a  man  who  in¬ 
sisted  on  their  hearing  him  preach  w'hen  they  wanted  to 
see  a  bear  dance,  or  a  conjurer  eat  fire.  A  magistrate  was 
a  persecutor,  because  he  summoned  him  to  appear  on  an 
unfounded  charge,  and  then  dismissed  him  on  his  own  re¬ 
cognisance.  He  gloried  with  better  reason  in  the  con¬ 
temptuous  language  with  which  he  was  assailed,  even  by 
the  more  decorous  of  his  opponents,  and  in  the  ribaldries 
of  Foot  and  BickerstafF.  He  would  gladly  have  partaken 
of  the  doom  of  Rogers  and  Ridley,  if  his  times  had  per¬ 
mitted,  and  his  cause  required  it;  but  the  fires  of  Smithfield 
were  put  out,  and  the  exasperated  Momus  of  the  fair,  with 
his  long  whip,  alone  remained  to  do  the  honours  appro¬ 
priated  to  the  feast  of  St.  Bartholomew. 

There  are  extant  seventy-five  of  the  sermons  by  which 
Whitfield  agitated  nations,  and  the  more  remote  influence  of 
which  is  still  distinctly  to  be  traced,  in  the  popular  divinity 
and  the  national  character  of  Great  Britain  and  of  the  United 
States.  They  have,  however,  fallen  into  neglect;  for  to 
win  permanent  acceptance  for  a  book,  into  which  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  life  were  not  infused  by  its  author,  is  a  miracle 
which  not  even  the  zeal  of  religious  proselytes  can  accom¬ 
plish.  Yet,  inferior  as  w7ere  hife  inventive  to  his  mimetic 
powrers,  Whitfield  is  entitled,  among  theological  writers,  to 
a  place,  which  if  it  cannot  challenge  admiration,  may  at 
least  excite  and  reward  curiosity.  Many,  and  those  by 
far  the  worst,  of  his  discourses,  bear  the  marks  of  care¬ 
ful  preparation.  Take  at  hazard  a  sermon  of  one  of  the 
preachers  usually  distinguished  as  evangelical,  add  a  little 
to  its  length,  and  subtract  a  great  deal  from  its  point  and 
polish,  and  you  have  one  of  his  more  elaborate  perform¬ 
ances — common  topics  discussed  in  a  commonplace  way;  a 
respectable  mediocrity  of  thought  and  style;  endless  varia¬ 
tions  on  one  or  two  cardinal  truths — in  short,  the  task  of  a 
clerical  Saturday  evening,  executed  with  piety,  good  sense 
and  exceeding  sedateness.  But  open  one  of  that  series 


TIIE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


81 


of  Whitfield’s  sermons  which  bears  the  stamp  of  having 
been  conceived  and  uttered  at  the  same  moment,  and  ima¬ 
gine  it  recited  to  myriads  of  eager  listeners  with  every 
charm  of  voice  and  gesture,  and  the  secret  of  his  unrivalled 
fascination  is  at  least  partially  disclosed.  He  places  him¬ 
self  on  terms  of  intimacy  and  unreserved  confidence  with 
you,  and  makes  it  almost  as  difficult  to  decline  the  invitation 
to  his  familiar  talk  as  if  Montague  himself  had  issued  it. 
The  egotism  is  amusing,  affectionate  and  warm-hearted; 
with  just  that  slight  infusion  of  self-importance  without 
which  it  would  pass  for  affectation.  In  his  art  of  rhetoric, 
personification  holds  the  first  place;  and  the  prosopopxia  is 
so  managed  as  to  quicken  abstractions  into  life,  and  to  give 
them  individuality  and  distinctness  without  the  exhibition 
of  any  of  those  spasmodic  and  distorted  images  which  obey 
the  incantations  of  vulgar  exorcists.  Every  trace  of  study 
and  contrivance  is  obliterated  by  the  hearty  earnestness 
which  pervades  each  successive  period,  and  by  the  verna¬ 
cular  and  homely  idioms  in  which  his  meaning  is  conveyed. 
The  recollection  of  William  Cobbett  will  obtrude  itself  on 
the  reader  of  these  discourses,  though  the  presence  of  the 
sturdy  athlete  of  the  “  Political  Register,”  with  his  sophis¬ 
try  and  his  sarcasm,  his  drollery  and  his  irascible  vigour, 
sorely  disturbs  the  sacred  emotions  which  it  was  the  one 
object  of  the  preacher  to  awaken.  And  it  is  in  this  gran¬ 
deur  and  singleness  of  purpose  that  the  charm  of  Whitfield’s 
preaching  seems  really  to  have  consisted.  You  feel  that 
you  have  to  do  with  a  man  who  lived  and  spoke,  and  who 
would  gladly  have  died,  to  deter  his  hearers  from  the  path 
of  destruction,  and  to  guide  them  to  holiness  and  peace. 
His  gossiping  stories,  and  dramatic  forms  of  speech,  are 
never  employed  to  hide  the  awful  realities  on  which  he  is 
intent.  Conscience  is  not  permitted  to  find  an  intoxicating 
draught  in  even  spiritual  excitement,  or  an  anodyne  in 
glowing  imagery.  Guilt  and  its  punishment,  pardon  and 
spotless  purity,  death  and  an  eternal  existence,  stand  out 
in  bold  relief  on  every  page.  From  these  the  eye  of  the 
teacher  is  never  withdrawn,  and  to  these  the  attention  of 
the  hearer  is  riveted.  All  that  is  poetic,  grotesque,  or  rap¬ 
turous,  is  employed  to  deepen  these  impressions,  and  is 
dismissed  as  soon  as  that  purpose  is  answered.  Deficient 
in  learning,  meagre  in  thought  and  redundant  in  language 
as  are  these  discourses,  they  yet  fulfil  the  one  great  condi- 


82 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tion  of  genuine  eloquence.  They  propagate  their  own 
kindly  warmth,  and  leave  their  stings  behind  them. 

The  enumeration  of  the  sources  of  Whitfield’s  power  is 
still  essentially  defective.  Neither  energy,  nor  eloquence, 
nor  histrionic  talents,  nor  any  artifices  of  style,  nor  the 
most  genuine  sincerity  and  self-devotedness,  nor  all  these 
united,  would  have  enabled  him  to  mould  the  religious  cha¬ 
racter  of  millions  in  his  own  and  future  generations.  The 
secret  lies  deeper,  though  not  very  deep.  It  consisted  in 
the  nature  of  the  theology  he  taught — in  its  perfect  sim¬ 
plicity  and  universal  application.  His  thirty  or  forty  thou¬ 
sand  sermons  were  but  so  many  variations  on  two  key¬ 
notes.  Man  is  guilty,  and  may  obtain  forgiveness;  he  is 
immortal,  and  must  ripen  here  for  endless  weal  or  wo 
hereafter.  Expanded  into  innumerable  forms,  and  diversi¬ 
fied  by  infinite  varieties  of  illustration,  these  two  cardinal 
principles  were  ever  in  his  heart  and  on  his  tongue.  Let 
who  would  invoke  poetry  to  embellish  the  Christian  sys¬ 
tem,  or  philosophy  to  explore  its  esoteric  depths,  from  his 
lips  it  was  delivered  as  an  awful  and  urgent  summons  to 
repent,  to  believe  and  to  obey.  To  set  to  music  the  orders 
issued  to  seamen  in  a  storm,  or  to  address  them  in  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  Aristotle  or  Descartes,  would  have  seemed  to  him 
not  a  whit  more  preposterous  than  to  divert  his  hearers 
from  their  danger  and  their  refuge,  their  duties  and  their 
hopes,  to  any  topics  more  trivial  or  more  abstruse.  In  fine, 
he  was  thoroughly  and  continually  in  earnest,  and,  therefore, 
possessed  that  tension  of  the  soul  which  admitted  neither 
of  lassitude,  nor  relaxation,  few  and  familiar  as  were  the 
topics  to  which  he  was  confined.  His  was,  therefore,  pre¬ 
cisely  that  state  of  mind  in  which  alone  eloquence,  p>ro- 
perly  so  called,  can  be  engendered,  and  a  moral  and  intel¬ 
lectual  sovereignty  won. 

A  still  more  important  topic  we  pass  over  silently,  not 
as  doubting,  or  reluctant  to  acknowledge,  the  reality  of  that 
Divine  influence,  of  which  the  greatest  benefactors  of 
mankind  are  at  most  but  the  voluntary  agents;  but  because, 
desiring  to  observe  the  proprieties  of  time  and  place,  we 
abandon  such  discussions  to  pages  more  sacred  than  our 
own. 

The  effects  of  Whitfield’s  labours  on  succeeding  times 
have  been  thrown  into  the  shade  by  the  more  brilliant  for¬ 
tunes  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Dynasty  of  which  Wesley  was 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


83 


at  once  the  founder,  the  lawgiver  and  the  head.  Yet  a 
large  proportion  of  the  American  Churches,  and  that  great 
body  of  the  Church  of  England  which,  assuming  the  title 
of  Evangelical,  has  been  refused  that  of  Orthodox,  may 
trace  back  their  spiritual  genealogy,  by  regular  descent 
from  him.  It  appears,  indeed,  that  there  are  among  them 
some  who,  for  having  disavowed  this  ancestry,  have  brought 
themselves  within  the  swing  of  Mr.  Philip’s  club.  To 
rescue  them,  if  it  were  possible,  from  the  bruises  which 
they  have  provoked,  would  be  to  arrest  the  legitimate 
march  of  penal  justice.  The  consanguinity  is  attested  by 
historical  records  and  by  the  strongest  family  resemblance. 
The  quarterings  of  Whitfield  are  entitled  to  a  conspicuous 
place  in  the  Evangelical  scutcheon;  and  they  who  bear  it 
are  not  wise  in  being  ashamed  of  the  blazonry. 

Four  conspicuous  names  connect  the  great  field-preacher 
with  the  Evangelical  body,  as  it  at  present  exists  in  the 
Church  of  England.  The  first  of  these,  Henry  Venn,  ex¬ 
hibited  in  a  systematic  form  the  doctrines  and  precepts  of 
the  Evangelical  divinity  in  a  treatise,  bearing  the  signifi¬ 
cant  title  of  the  “ New  Whole  Duty  of  Man.”  He  was 
the  founder  of  that  “school  of  the  prophets,”  which  has, 
to  the  present  day,  continued  to  flourish  with  unabated  or 
increasing  vigour  in  the  University  of  Cambridge,  and  the 
writer  of  a  series  of  letters  which  have  lately  been  edited 
by  one  of  his  lineal  descendants.  They  possess  the  pecu¬ 
liar  and  very  powerful  charm  of  giving  utterance  to  the 
most  profound  affections  in  grave,  chaste,  and  simple  lan¬ 
guage,  and  indicate  a  rare  subjection  of  the  intellectual,  and 
sensitive,  to  the  spiritual  nature — of  an  intellect  of  no  com¬ 
mon  vigour,  and  a  sensibility  of  exquisite  acuteness,  to  a 
spirit  at  once  elevated  and  subdued  by  devout  contempla¬ 
tions. 

He  was  followed  by  Joseph  Milner,  who,  in  a  history 
of  the  Church  of  Christ,  traced,  from  the  days  of  the 
Apostles  to  the  Reformation,  the  perpetual  succession  of 
an  interior  society  by  which  the  tenets  of  the  Calvinislic 
Methodists  had  been  received  and  transmitted  as  a  sacred 
deposit  from  age  to  age.  A  man  of  more  spotless  truth 
and  honesty  than  Milner  never  yet  assumed  the  historical 
office.  But  he  was  encumbered  at  once  by  a  theory,  and 
by  the  care  of  a  grammar-school;  the  one  anticipating  his 
judgments,  the  other  narrowing  the  range  of  his  investiga- 


84 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tions.  His  “  apparatus  ”  included  little  more  than  the  New 
Testament,  the  Fathers,  and  the  ecclesiastical  historians. 
To  explore,  to  concentrate,  and  to  scrutinize  with  philoso¬ 
phical  scepticism,  the  evidences  by  which  they  are  illus¬ 
trated  and  explained,  was  a  task  unsuited  alike  to  his 
powers,  his  devotion,  and  his  taste.  He  has  bequeathed 
to  the  world  a  book  which  can  never  lose  its  interest, 
either  with  those  who  read  to  animate  their  piety,  or  with 
those  who,  in  their  search  for  historical  truth,  are  willing 
not  merely  to  examine  the  proofs,  but  to  listen  to  the  ad¬ 
vocates. 

John  Newton,  most 'generally  known  as  the  friend  and 
spiritual  guide  of  Cowper,  has  yet  better  claims  to  cele¬ 
brity.  For  many  years  the  standard  bearer  of  his  section 
of  the  Anglican  Church  in  London,  he  was  the  writer  of 
many  works,  and  especially  of  an  autobiography,  which  is 
to  be  numbered  amongst  the  most  singular  and  impressive 
delineations  of  human  character.  A  more  rare  psycholo¬ 
gical  phenomenon  than  Newton  was  never  subjected  to  the 
examination  of  the  curious.  The  captain  of  a  slave-ship, 
given  up  at  one  time  to  all  manner  of  vice  and  debauchery, 
gradually  emerges  into  a  perfect  Oroondates,  haunted  to  the 
verge  of  madness  by  the  sentimental  Psyche,  but  is  still  a 
slave-trader.  He  studies  the  Scriptures  and  the  classics  in 
his  cabin,  while  his  captives  are  writhing  in  mental  and 
bodily  agonies  in  the  hold.  With  nerves  of  iron,  and 
sinews  of  brass,  he  combines  an  almost  feminine  tenderness, 
and  becomes  successively  the  victim  of  remorse,  a  peni¬ 
tent,  a  clergyman,  an  eminent  preacher,  an  author  of  no 
mean  pretensions  in  verse  and  prose,  beloved  and  esteemed 
by  the  wise  and  good;  and  at  an  extreme  old  age  closes  in 
honour,  peace,  and  humble  hope,  a  life  of  strange  vicissi¬ 
tudes,  and  of  still  stranger  contrasts.  The  position  which 
he  has  the  courage  to  challenge  for  himself  in  the  chronicle 
of  his  party,  is  that  of  an  example  of  the  salutary  influence 
of  their  principles  on  a  man  once  given  up  to  reckless 
guilt.  His  friends  and  followers,  with  more  discretion, 
and  at  least  equal  truth,  assert  for  him  the  praise  of  having 
consecrated  his  riper  and  declining  years  to  the  practice  of 
pure  and  undefiled  religion  ;  and  to  the  inculcation  of  it 
with  all  the  vigour  of  his  natural  disposition,  tempered  by 
a  composure  and  adorned  by  an  elegance,  the  most  remote 
from  his  primitive  character. 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FR0UDE. 


85 


The  last  of  the  fathers  of  the  Evangelical  Church  was 
Thomas  Scott,  the  author  of  many  books,  and  amongst 
these  of  a  treatise  called  the  “  Force  of  Truth,”  which  re¬ 
cords  his  own  mental  history;  and  of  a  Commentary  on  the 
Bible,  in  which  the  truth  he  sought  and  believed  himself 
to  have  found  is  discovered  in  almost  every  page  of  the  in¬ 
spired  volume.  Scott  was  nothing  less  than  a  prodigy  of 
autodidactic  knowledge.  Bred  up  in  humble  life,  with 
little  education,  regular  or  irregular,  and  immersed  from 
youth  to  age  in  clerical  cares  (of  which  a  well-fitted  nur¬ 
sery  and  an  ill-filled  purse  seem  inevitable  parts,)  he  had 
neither  money  to  multiply  books,  nor  much  leisure  or  in¬ 
clination  to  read  them.  But  he  studied  his  congregation, 
his  bible  and  himself.  From  those  investigations,  con¬ 
ducted  with  admirable  sagacity,  good  faith  and  perseve¬ 
rance,  he  accumulated  a  fund  of  thought  indigenous  if  not 
original,  accurate  if  not  profound,  which,  considered  as  the 
gathering  of  a  solitary  mind,  is  altogether  marvellous.  In 
the  later  editions  of  his  work,  indeed,  he  interspersed  such 
learning  as  he  had  derived  from  subsequent  study.  But, 
inverting  the  established  order,  he  seems  to  have  published 
his  own  books  first,  and  to  have  read  those  of  other  men 
afterwards.  Such  a  process,  executed  with  such  zeal  and 
earnestness,  if  aided  by  a  vivid  imagination,  would  have 
rendered  his  speculations  instinct  with  breath  and  life  ;  if 
directed  by  vanity,  it  would  have  ascribed  to  the  sacred 
oracles  some  wild  novelties  of  meaning  at  jar  with  the 
sense  and  spirit  of  their  authors  ;  if  guided  by  mercenary 
views,  it  would  have  brought  them  into  harmony  with  the 
opinions  of  the  orthodox  dispensers  of  ecclesiastical  emolu¬ 
ments  and  honours.  But  imagination  in  the  mind  of 
Thomas  Scott  was  not  merely  wanting,  it  was  a  negative 
quantity;  and  his  chariot-wheels  drove  heavily.  The  thirst 
of  praise  or  of  wealth  was  quenched  by  a  desire  as  simple 
and  as  pure  as  ever  prompted  human  activity  to  promote 
the  Divine  glory  and  the  good  of  man.  He  would  have 
seen  the  labours  of  his  life  perish,  and  would  have  pe¬ 
rished  with  them,  rather  than  distort  the  sense  of  revelation 
by  a  hair’s  breadth  from  what  he  believed  to  be  its  genuine 
meaning.  He  rendered  to  his  party  (if  with  such  a  man 
party  can  be  fitly  associated)  the  inestimable  service  of 
showing  how  their  distinguishing  tenets,  mav  be  deduced 
Irom  the  sacred  canon,  or  reconciled  with  it;  and  of  placing 
8 


86 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


their  feet  on  that  which  Chillingworth  had  proclaimed  as 
the  rock  of  the  Reformation. 

Gradually,  however,  it  came  to  pass  in  the  Evangelical, 
as  in  other  societies,  that  the  symbol  was  adopted  by  many 
who  were  strangers  to  the  spirit  of  the  original  institution; — 
by  many  an  indolent,  trivial,  or  luxurious  aspirant  to  its 
advantages,  both  temporal  and  eternal.  The  terms  of 
membership  had  never  been  definite  or  severe.  Whitfield 
and  his  followers  had  required  from  those  who  joined  their 
standard  neither  the  adoption  of  any  new  ritual,  nor  the 
abandonment  of  any  established  ceremonies,  nor  an  irksome 
submission  to  ecclesiastical  authority,  nor  the  renunciation 
of  any  reputable  path  to  eminence  or  to  wealth.  The 
distinguishing  tenets  were  few  and  easily  learned;  the  neces¬ 
sary  observances  neither  onerous  nor  unattended  with  much 
pleasurable  emotion.  In  the  lapse  of  years  the  discipline 
of  the  society  imperceptibly  declined,  and  errors  coeval 
with  its  existence  exhibited  themselves  in  an  exaggerated 
form.  When  country  gentlemen  and  merchants,  lords 
spiritual  and  temporal,  and  even  fashionable  ladies  gave  in 
their  adhesion,  their  dignities  uninvaded,  their  ample  ex¬ 
penditure  flowing  chiefly  in  its  accustomed  channels,  and 
their  saloons  as  crowded  if  not  as  brilliant  as  before,  the 
spirit  of  Whitfield  was  to  be  traced  among  his  followers, 
not  so  much  in  the  burning  zeal  and  self-devotion  of  that 
extraordinary  man,  as  in  his  insubordination  to  episcopal 
rule  and  unquenchable  thirst  for  spiritual  excitement.  Al¬ 
though  the  fields  and  the  market-places  no  longer  echoed 
to  the  voice  of  the  impassioned  preacher  and  the  hallelujahs 
of  enraptured  myriads;  yet  spacious  theatres,  sacred  to 
such  uses,  received  a  countless  host  to  harangue  or  to  ap¬ 
plaud;  to  recount  or  to  hear  adventures  of  stirring  interest; 
to  propagate  the  Christian  faith  to  the  furthest  recesses  of 
the  globe;  to  drop  the  superfluous  guinea,  and  to  retire 
with  feelings  strangely  balanced  between  the  human  and 
the  divine,  the  glories  of  heaven  and  the  vanities  of  earth. 

The  venerable  cloisters  of  Oxford  sheltered  a  new  race 
of  students,  who  listened  not  without  indignation,  to  the 
rumours  of  this  religious  movement.  Invigorated  by  ha¬ 
bitual  self-denial;  of  unsullied,  perhaps  of  austere  virtue; 
with  intellectual  powers  of  no  vulgar  cast;  and  deeply  con¬ 
versant  with  Christian  antiquity, — they  acknowledged  a 
Divine  command  to  recall  their  country  to  a  piety  more 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


37 


profound  and  masculine,  more  meek  and  contemplative. 
They  spoke  in  the  name  and  with  the  authority  of  the 
“Catholic  Church,”  the  supreme  interpreter  of  the  holy 
mysteries  confided  to  her  care.  That  sublime  abstraction 
has  not  indeed,  as  of  yore,  a  visible  throne  and  a  triple 
crown;  nor  can  she  now  point  to  the  successors  of  the 
fishermen  of  Galilee  collected  into  a  sacred  college  at  the 
Vatican.  Though  still  existing  in  a  mysterious  unity  of 
communion,  faith  and  practice,  she  is  present  in  every  land 
and  among  all  people,  where  due  honour  is  paid  to  the 
Episcopal  office  derived  by  an  unbroken  succession  from 
the  Apostles.  Her  doctrines  are  those  to  which  Rome  and 
Constantinople  have  made  some  corrupt  additions,  but 
which  the  Ante-Nicene  fathers  professed  and  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  ancestors  adopted.  She  requires  the  rigid  obser¬ 
vance  of  her  ancient  formularies,  and  calls  on  her  children 
to  adore  rather  than  to  investigate.  She  announces  tenets 
which  the  unlearned  must  submissively  receive  with  a 
modest  self-distrust;  inculcates  a  morality  which  pervades 
and  sanctifies  the  most  minute,  not  less  than  the  more  con¬ 
siderable  of  our  actions;  and  demands  a  piety  which  is  to 
be  avowed  not  by  the  utterance  of  religious  sentiments, 
nor  by  a  retreat  from  the  ordinary  pursuits  or  pleasures  of 
the  world,  but  by  the  silent  tenour  of  a  devout  life.  If 
among  the  teachers  of  this  new  or  restored  divinity,  Ox¬ 
ford  should  raise  up  another  Whitfield,  the  principles  for 
which  the  martyrs  of  the  Reformation  died  might  be  in 
peril  of  at  least  a  temporary  subversion,  in  that  church 
which  has  for  the  last  three  centuries  numbered  Cranmer, 
Hooper,  and  Ridley,  amongst  her  most  venerated  fathers. 
The  extent  of  the  danger  will  be  best  estimated  by  a  short 
survey  of  the  career  of  the  only  confessor  of  Oxford  Ca¬ 
tholicism,  who  has  yet  taken  his  place  in  ecclesiastical 
biography. 

Richard  Hurrell  Froude  was  born  “on  the  Feast  of  the 
Annunciation”  in  1803,  and  died  in  1836.  He  was  an 
Etonian  ;  a  fellow  of  Oriel  College;  a  priest  in  holy  orders; 
the  writer  of  journals,  letters,  sermons  and  unsuccessful 
prize  essays;  an  occasional  contributor  to  the  periodical 
literature  of  his  theological  associates;  and,  during  the  last 
four  years  of  his  life,  a  resident  alternately  in  the  South  of 
Europe  and  the  West  Indies.  If  the  progress  of  his  name 
to  oblivion  shall  be  arrested  for  some  brief  interval,  it  will 


88 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


be  owing  to  the  strange  discretion  with  which  his  surviving 
friends  have  disclosed  to  the  world  the  curious  and  melan¬ 
choly  portraiture  drawn  by  hi's  own  hand  of  the  effects  of 
their  peculiar  system.  “The  extreme  importance  of  the 
views  to  the  development  of  which  the  whole  is  meant 
to  be  subservient,”  and  “  the  instruction  derivable  from  a 
full  exhibition  of  his  character  as  a  witness  to  those  views,” 
afford  the  inadequate  apology  for  inviting  the  world  to  read 
a  self-examination  as  frank  and  unreserved  as  the  most 
courageous  man  could  have  committed  to  paper  in  this  un¬ 
scrupulous  and  inquisitive  generation.  Yet,  if  the  editors 
of  Mr.  Froude’s  papers  are  the  depositories  of  those  which 
his  mother  appears  to  have  written,  and  will  publish  them 
also,  it  will  be  impossible  to  refuse  them  absolution  from 
whatever  penalties  they  may  have  already  incurred.  These 
volumes  contain  but  one  letter  from  that  lady;  and  it  con¬ 
trasts  with  the  productions  of  her  son  as  the  voice  of  a 
guardian  angel  with  the  turbulent  language  of  a  spirit  to 
which  it  had  been  appointed  to  minister.  She  read  his 
heart  with  a  mother’s  sagacity,  and  thus  revealed  it  to 
himself  with  a  mother’s  tenderness  and  truth. 

“From  his  very  birth  his  temper  has  been  peculiar; 
pleasing,  intelligent  and  attaching,  when  his  mind  was  un¬ 
disturbed  and  he  was  in  the  company  of  people  who  treated 
him  reasonably  and  kindly;  but  exceedingly  impatient 
under  vexatious  circumstances;  very  much  disposed  to  find 
his  own  amusement  in  teasing  and  vexing  others;  and  al¬ 
most  entirely  incorrigible  when  it  was  necessary  to  reprove 
him.  I  never  could  find  a  successful  mode  of  treating  him. 
Harshness  made  him  obstinate  and  gloomy;  calm  and  long 
displeasure  made  him  stupid  and  sullen;  and  kind  patience 
had  not  sufficient  power  over  his  feelings  to  force  him  to 
govern  himself.  After  a  statement  of  such  great  faults,  it 
may  seem  an  inconsistency  to  say,  that  he  nevertheless  still 
bore  about  him  strong  marks  of  a  promising  character.  In 
all  points  of  substantial  principle  his  feelings  were  just  and 
high.  He  had  (for  his  age)  an  unusually  deep  feeling  of 
admiration  for  every  tiling  which  was  good  and  noble;  his 
relish  was  lively  and  his  taste  good,  for  all  the  pleasures  of 
the  imagination;  and  he  was  also  quite  conscious  of  his 
own  faults,  and  (untempted)  had  a  just  dislike  to  them.” 

Though  the  mother  and  the  child  are  both  beyond  the 
reach  of  all  human  opinion,  it  seems  almost  an  impiety  to 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  A.ND  FROUDE. 


89 


transcribe  her  estimate  of  his  early  character,  and  to  add, 
that,  when  developed  and  matured  in  his  riper  years,  it  but 
too  distinctly  fulfilled  her  less  favourable  judgment.  Ex¬ 
ercising  a  stern  and  absolute  dominion  over  all  the  baser 
passions,  with  a  keen  perception  of  the  beautiful  in  nature 
and  in  art,  and  a  deep  homage  for  the  sublime  in  morals; 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  classical  authors,  and  delight¬ 
ing  in  the  strenuous  exercise  of  talents  which,  if  they  fell 
short  of  excellence,  rose  far  above  mediocrity,  Mr.  Froude 
might  have  seemed  to  want  no  promise  of  an  honourable 
rank  in  literature,  or  of  distinction  in  his  sacred  office. 
His  career  was  intercepted  by  a  premature  death,  but 
enough  is  recorded  to  show  that  his  aspirations,  however 
noble,  must  have  been  defeated  by  the  pride  and  morose¬ 
ness  which  his  mother’s  wisdom  detected,  and  which  her 
love  disclosed  to  him ;  united  as  they  were  to  a  constitu¬ 
tional  distrust  of  his  own  powers  and  a  weak  reliance  on 
other  minds  for  guidance  and  support.  A  spirit  at  once 
haughty  and  unsustained  by  genuine  self-confidence;  sub¬ 
dued  by  the  stronger  will  or  intellect  of  other  men,  and 
glorying  in  that  subjection;  regarding  its  opponents  with 
an  intolerance  exceeding  their  own;  and,  in  the  midst  of 
all,  turning  with  no  infrequent  indignation  on  itself — might 
form  the  basis  of  a  good  dramatic  sketch,  of  which  Mr. 
Froude  might  not  unworthily  sustain  the  burden.  But  a 
“dialogue  of  the  dead,”  in  which  George  Whitfield  and 
Richard  Froude  should  be  the  interlocutors,  would  be  a 
more  appropriate  channel  for  illustrating  the  practical  uses 
of  “  the  second  reformation,”  and  of  the  “  Catholic  restora¬ 
tion,”  which  it  is  the  object  of  their  respective  biographies 
to  illustrate.  Rhadamanthus  having  dismissed  them  from 
his  tribunal,  they  would  compare  together  their  juvenile 
admiration  of  the  drama,  their  ascetic  discipline  at  Oxford, 
their  early  dependence  on  stronger  or  more  resolute  minds, 
their  propensity  to  self-observation  and  to  record  its  results 
on  paper,  their  opinions  of  the  negro  race,  and  the  surprise 
with  which  they  witnessed  the  worship  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  in  lands  where  it  is  still  triumphant.  So  far  all  is 
peace,  and  the  conconles  animse  exchange  such  greetings 
as  pass  between  disembodied  spirits.  But  when  the  tidings 
brought  by  the  new  denizen  of  the  Elysian  fields  to  the 
reformer  of  the  eighteenth  century,  reach  his  affrighted 
shade,  the  regions  of  the  blessed  are  disturbed  by  an  un* 

8* 


90 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


wonted  discord;  and  the  fiery  soul  of  Whitfield  blazes  with 
intense  desire  to  resume  his  wanderings  through  the  earth, 

#  and  to  lift  up  his  voice  against  the  new  apostacy. 

It  was  with  no  unmanly  dread  of  the  probe,  but  from 
want  of  skill  or  leisure  to  employ  it,  that  the  self-scru¬ 
tiny  of  Whitfield  seldom  or  never  penetrated  much  be¬ 
low  the  surface.  Preach  he  must;  and  when  no  audience 
could  be  brought  together,  he  seized  a  pen  and  exhorted 
himself.  The  uppermost  feeling,  be  it  what  it  may,  is  put 
down  in  his  journal  honestly,  vigorously  and  devoutly,  Sa¬ 
tan  is  menaced  and  upbraided.  Intimations  from  Heaven 
are  recorded  without  one  painful  doubt  of  their  origin.  He 
prays  and  exults,  anticipates  the  future  with  delight,  looks 
back  to  the  past  with  thankfulness,  blames  himself  simply 
because  he  thinks  himself  to  blame,  despairs  of  nothing, 
fears  nothing,  and  has  not  a  moment’s  ill-will  to  any  hu¬ 
man  being. 

Mr.  Froude  conducts  his  written  soliloquies  in  a  differ¬ 
ent  spirit.  His  introverted  gaze  analyzes  with  elaborate 
minuteness  the  various  motives  at  the  confluence  of  which 
his  active  powers  receive  their  impulse,  and,  with  pervert¬ 
ed  sagacity,  pursues  the  self-examination,  until,  bewildered 
in  the  dark  labyrinth  of  his  own  nature,  he  escapes  to  the 
cheerful  light  of  day  by  locking  up  his  journal.  “  A 
friend,”  (whose  real  name  is  as  distinctly  intimated  under 
its  initial  letter  as  if  the  patronymic  were  written  at  length,) 
“  advises  burning  confessions.  I  cannot  make  up  my  mind 
to  that,”  replies  the  penitent,  “but  I  think  I  can  see  many 
points  in  which  it  will  be  likely  to  do  me  good  to  be  cut 
off  for  sometime  from  these  records.”  On  such  a  subject 
the  author  of  “The  Christian  Year”  was  entitled  to  more 
deference.  The  great  ornament  of  the  College  de  Propa¬ 
ganda  at  Oxford,  he  also  had  used  the  mental  microscope 
to  excess.  Admonishing  men  to  approach  their  Creator 
not  as  isolated  beings,  but  as  members  of  the  Universal 
Church,  and  teaching  the  inmates  of  her  hallowed  courts 
to  worship  in  strains  so  pure,  so  reverent  and  so  meek,  as 
to  answer  not  unworthily  to  the  voice  of  hope  and  recon¬ 
ciliation  in  which  she  is  addressed  by  her  Divine  Head, 
yet  had  this  “sweet  singer”  so  brooded  over  the  evanes¬ 
cent  processes  of  his  own  spiritual  nature,  as  not  seldom  to 
throw  round  his  meaning  a  haze  which  rendered  it  imper¬ 
ceptible  to  his  readers  and  probably  to  himself.  With 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


91 


what  sound  judgment  he  counselled  Mr,  Froude  to  burn  his 
books  may  be  judged  from  the  following  entries  in  them: — 
“  I  have  been  talking  a  great  deal  to  B.  about  religion 
to-day.  He  seems  to  take  such  straightforward  practical 
views  of  it  that,  when  I  am  talking  to  him,  I  wonder  what 
I  have  been  bothering  myself  with  all  the  summer,  and  al¬ 
most  doubt  how  far  it  is  right  to  allow  myself  to  indulge  in 
speculations  on  a  subject  where  all  that  is  necessary  is  so 
plain  and  obvious.” — “Yesterday  when  I  went  out  shoot¬ 
ing,  I  fancied  I  did  not  care  whether  I  hit  or  not,  but  when 
it  came  to  the  point  I  found  myself  anxious,  and,  after 
having  killed,  was  not  unwilling  to  let  myself  be  considered 
a  better  shot  than  I  had  described  myself.  I  had  an  im¬ 
pulse,  too,  to  let  it  be  thought  I  had  only  three  shots  when 
I  really  had  had  four.  It  wras  slight,  to  be  sure,  but  I  felt 
it.” — “I  have  read  my  journal,  though  I  can  hardly  identify 
myself  with  the  person  it  describes.  It  seems  like  leaving 
some  one  under  one’s  guardianship  who  was  an  intolerable 
fool,  and  exposed  himself  to  my  contempt  every  moment 
for  the  most  ridiculous  and  trifling  motives;  and  while  I 
was  thinking  all  this,  I  went  into  L’s  room  to  seek  a  pair 
of  shoes,  and  on  hearing  him  coming  got  away  as  silently 
as  possible.  Why  did  I  do  this?  Did  I  think  I  was  do¬ 
ing  what  L.  did  not  like,  or  was  it  the  relic  of  a  sneaking 
habit?  I  will  ask  myself  these  questions  again.” — “  I  have 
a  sort  of  vanity  which  aims  at  my  own  good  opinion,  and 
I  look  for  any  thing  to  prove  to  myself  that  I  am  more  anx¬ 
ious  to  mind  myself  than  other  people.  I  was  very  hun¬ 
gry,  but  because  I  thought  the  charge  unreasonable,  I 
tried  to  shirk  the  waiter;  sneaking!” — “Yesterday  I  was 
much  put  out  by  an  old  fellow  chewing  tobacco  and  spitting 
across  me;  also  bad  thoughts  of  various  kinds  kept  present¬ 
ing  themselves  to  my  mind  when  it  was  vacant.” — “  I 
talked  sillily  to-day  as  I  used  to  do  last  term,  but  took  no 
pleasure  in  it,  so  I  am  not  ashamed.  Although  I  don’t  re¬ 
collect  any  harm  of  myself,  yet  I  don’t  feel  that  I  have 
made  a  clean  breast  of  it.” — “  I  forgot  to  mention  that  I  had 
been  looking  round  my  rooms  and  thinking  that  they  looked 
comfortable  and  nice,  and  that  I  said  in  my  heart,  Ah,  ha! 
I  am  warm.” — “  It  always  suggests  itself  to  me  that  a  wise 
thought  is  wasted  when  it  is  kept  to  myself,  against  which, 
as  it  is  my  mostbothering  temptation,  I  will  set  down  some 
arguments  to  be  called  to  mind  in  time  of  trouble.” — “  Now 


92 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


I  am  proud  of  this,  and  think  that  the  knowledge  it  shows 
of  myself  implies  a  greatness  of  mind.” — “  These  records 
are  no  guide  to  me  to  show  the  state  of  my  mind  afterwards; 
they  are  so  far  from  being  exercises  of  humility,  that  they 
lessen  the  shame  of  what  I  record  just  as  professions  and 
good  will  to  other  people  reconcile  us  to  our  neglect  of 
them.” 

The  precept  ‘‘know  thyself”  came  down  from  heaven; 
but  such  self-knowledge  as  this  has  no  heavenward  tenden¬ 
cy.  It  is  no  part  of  the  economy  of  our  nature,  or  of  the 
will  of  our  Maker,  that  we  should  so  cunningly  unravel  the 
subtle  filaments  of  which  our  motives  are  composed.  If  a 
man  should  subject  to  such  a  scrutiny  the  feelings  of  others  to 
himself,  he  would  soon  lose  his  faith  in  human  virtue  and  af¬ 
fection;  and  the  mind  which  should  thus  put  to  the  question 
its  own  workings  in  the  domestic  or  social  relations  of  life 
would  ere  long  become  the  victim  of  a  still  more  fatal 
scepticism.  Why  dream  that  this  reflex  operation,  which, 
if  directed  towards  those  feelings  of  which  our  fellow-crea¬ 
tures  are  the  object,  would  infallibly  eject  from  the  heart 
all  love  and  all  respect  for  man,  should  strengthen  either 
the  love  or  the  fear  of  God?  A  well-tutored  conscience 
aims  at  breadth  rather  than  minuteness  of  survey;  and  tasks 
itself  much  more  to  ascertain  general  results  than  to  find  out 
the  solution  of  riddles.  So  long  as  religious  men  must 
reveal  their  “  experiences,”  and  self-defamation  revels  in 
its  present  impunity,  there  is  no  help  for  it,  but  in  with¬ 
holding  the  applause  to  which  even  lowliness  itself  aspires 
for  the  candour  with  which  it  is  combined,  and  the  acute¬ 
ness  by  which  it  is  embellished. 

It  is  not  bv  these  nice  self-observers  that  the  creeds  of 

a/ 

hoar  antiquity,  and  the  habits  of  centuries  are  to  be  shaken; 
nor  is  such  high  emprize  reserved  for  ascetics  who  can 
pause  to  enumerate  the  slices  of  bread  and  butter  from 
which  they  have  abstained.  When  Whitfield  would  mor¬ 
tify  his  body,  he  set  about  it  like  a  man.  The  paroxysm 
was  short,  indeed,  but  terrible.  While  it  lasted  his  dis¬ 
eased  imagination  brought  soul  and  body  into  deadly  con¬ 
flict,  the  fierce  spirit  spurning,  trampling,  and  well-nigh 
destroying  the  peccant  carcass.  Not  so  the  fastidious  and 
refined  “  witness  to  the  views  ”  of  the  restorers  of  the  Ca¬ 
tholic  Church.  The  strife  between  his  spiritual  and  ani¬ 
mal  nature  is  recorded  in  his  journal  in  such  terms  as 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


93 


these — “  Looked  with  greediness  to  see  if  there  was  goose 
on  the  table  for  dinner.” — Meant  to  have  kept  a  fast,  and 
did  abstain  from  dinner,  but  at  tea  eat  buttered  toast.” — 
“  Tasted  nothing  to*day  till  tea-time,  and  then  only  one 
cup  and  dry  bread.” — I  have  kept  my  fast  strictly,  having 
taken  nothing  till  near  nine  this  evening,  and  then  only  a 
cup  of  tea  and  a  little  bread  without  butter,  but  it  has  not 
been  as  easy  as  it  was  last.” — “  I  made  rather  a  more  hearty 
tea  than  usual,  quite  giving  up  the  notion  of  a  fast  in  W’s 
rooms,  and  by  this  weakness  have  occasioned  another 
slip.” 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  propriety  of  disclosing 
such  passages  as  these,  they  will  provoke  a  contemptuous 
smile  from  no  one  who  knows  much  of  his  own  heart. 
But  they  may  relieve  the  anxiety  of  the  alarmists.  Luther 
and  Zuingle,  Cranmer,  and  Latimer,  may  still  rest  in 
their  honoured  graves.  “  Take  courage,  brother  Ridley, 
we  shall  light  up  such  a  flame  in  England  as  shall  not 
soon  be  put  out,”  is  a  prophecy  which  will  not  be  defeat¬ 
ed  by  the  successors  of  those  who  heard  it,  so  long  as  their 
confessors  shall  be  vacant  to  record,  and  their  doctors  to 
publish,  contrite  reminiscences  of  a  desire  for  roasted  goose, 
and  of  an  undue  indulgence  in  buttered  toast. 

Yet  the  will  to  subvert  the  doctrines  and  discipline  of 
the  Reformation  is  not  wanting,  and  is  not  concealed.  Mr. 
Froude  himself,  were  he  still  living,  might,  indeed,  object 
to  be  judged  by  his  careless  and  familiar  letters.  No  such 
objection  can,  however,  be  made  by  the  eminent  persons 
who  have  deliberately  given  them  to  the  world  on  account 
of  “  the  truth  and  extreme  importance  of  the  views  to  which 
the  whole  is  meant  to  be  subservient,”  and  in  which  they 
record  their  “own  general  concurrence.”  Of  these  weighty 
truths  take  the  following  examples:—- 

“  You  will  be  shocked  by  my  avowal  that  I  am  every 
day  becoming  a  less  and  less  loyal  son  of  the  Reformation. 
It  appears  to  be  plain,  that  in  all  matters  which  seem  to  us 
indifferent,  or  even  doubtful,  we  should  conform  our  prac¬ 
tices  to  those  of  the  Church,  which  has  preserved  its  tra¬ 
ditionary  practices  unbroken.  We  cannot  know  about  any 
seemingly  indifferent  practice  of  the  Church  of  Rome  that 
is  not  a  development  of  the  apostolic  and  it  is  to  no 
purpose  to  say  that  we  can  find  no  proof  of  it  in  the  writings 
z>f  the  first  six  centuries — they  must  find  a  disproof  i  fthey 


94 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


would  do  any  thing.” — “  I  think  people  are  injudicious  who 
talk  against  the  Roman  Catholics  for  worshipping  saints 
and  honouring  the  Virgin  and  images,  &c.  These  things 
may,  perhaps,  be  idolatrous;  I  cannot  make  up  my  mind 
about  it.” — “  P.  called  us  the  Papal  Protestant  Church,  in 
which  he  proved  a  double  ignorance,  as  we  are  Catholics 
without  the  Popery,  and  Church  of  England  men  without 
the  Protestantism.” — “  The  more  1  think  over  that  view  of 
yours  about  regarding  our  present  communion  service,  &c., 
as  a  judgment  on  the  Church,  and  taking  it  as  the  crumbs 
from  the  apostle’s  table,  the  more  I  am  struck  with  its  fit¬ 
ness  to  be  dwelt  upon  as  tending  to  check  the  intrusion  of 
irreverent  thoughts,  without  in  any  way  interfering  with 
one’s  just  indignation.”— “  Your  trumpery  principle  about 
Scripture  being  the  sole  rule  of  faith  in  fundamentals  (I 
nauseate  the  word,)  is  but  a  mutilated  edition,  without  the 
breadth  and  axiomatic  character,  of  the  original.” — “  Re¬ 
ally  I  hate  the  Reformation  and  the  Reformers  more  and 
more,  and  have  almost  made  up  my  mind  that  the  rational¬ 
ist  spirit  they  set  afloat  is  the  of  the  Revela¬ 

tion.”  Why  do  you  praise  Ridley?  Do  you  know  suffi¬ 
cient  good  about  him  to  counterbalance  the  fact,  that  he 
was  the  associate  of  Cranmer,  Peter  Martyr,  and  Bucer?” 
- — 1 “  I  wish  you  could  get  to  know  something  of  S.  and  W. 
(Southey  and  Wordsworth,)  and  un-protestantize  and  un- 
Miltonize  them.” — “  How  is  it  we  are  so  much  in  advance 
of  our  generation ?” 

Spirit  of  George  Whitfield!  how  would  thy  voice,  rolled 
from  “  the  secret  place  of  thunders,”  have  overwhelmed 
these  puny  protests  against  the  truths  which  it  proclaimed 
from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun!  In  what  does  the  mo¬ 
dern  creed  of  Oxford  differ  from  the  ancient  faith  of  Rome? 
Hurried  along  by  the  abhorred  current  of  advancing  know¬ 
ledge  and  social  improvement,  they  have  indeed  renounced 
papal  dominion,  and  denied  papal  infallibility,  and  rejected 
the  grosser  superstitions  which  Rome  herself  at  once  de¬ 
spises  and  promotes.  But  a  prostrate  submission  to  human 
authority  (though  veiled  under  words  of  vague  and  myste¬ 
rious  import) — the  repose  of  the  wearied  or  indolent  mind 
on  external  observances — an  escape  from  the  arduous  exer¬ 
cise  of  man’s  highest  faculties  in  the  worship  of  his  Maker 
— the  usurped  dominion  of  the  imaginative  and  sensitive 
over  the  intellectual  powers — these  are  the  common  cha¬ 
racteristics  of  both  systems. 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FR0UDE. 


95 


The  Reformation  restored  to  the  Christian  world  its 
only  authentic  canon,  and  its  one  Supreme  Head.  It  pro¬ 
claimed  the  Scriptures  as  the  rule  of  life;  and  the  Divine 
Redeemer  as  the  supreme  and  central  object  to  whom  every 
eye  must  turn,  and  on  whom  every  hope  must  rest.  It  cast 
down  not  only  the  idols  erected  for  the  adoration  of  the  vul¬ 
gar,  but  the  idolatrous  abstractions  to  which  the  worship  of 
more  cultivated  minds  was  rendered.  Penetrating  the  de¬ 
sign,  and  seizing  the  spirit  of  the  gospels,  the  reformers 
inculcated  the  faith  in  which  the  sentient  and  the  spiritual 
in  man’s  compound  nature  had  each  its  appropriate  office; 
the  one  directed  to  the  Redeemer  in  his  palpable  form,  the 
other  to  the  Divine  Paraclete  in  his  hidden  agency;  while, 
united  with  these,  they  exhibited  to  a  sinful  but  penitent 
race  the  parental  character  of  the  Omnipresent  Deity. 
Such  is  not  the  teaching  of  the  restored  theology.  The 
most  eminent  of  its  professors  have  thrown  open  the  doors 
of  Mr.  Fronde’s  oratory,  and  have  invited  all  passers-by  to 
notice  in  Ids  prayers  and  meditations  “  the  absence  of  any 
distinct  mention  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour.”  They  are  ex¬ 
horted  not  to  doubt  that  there  was  a  real  though  silent 
“  allusion  to  Christ”  under  the  titles  in  which  the  Supreme 
Being  is  addressed ;  and  are  told  that  “  this  circumstance 
may  be  a  comfort  to  those  who  cannot  bring  themselves  to 
assume  the  tone  of  many  popular  writers  of  this  day,  who 
yet  are  discouraged  by  the  peremptoriness  with  which  it  is 
exacted  of  them.  The  truth  is,  that  a  mind  alive  to  its  own 
real  state  often  shrinks  to  utter  what  it  most  dwells  upon; 
and  is  too  full  of  awe  and  fear  to  do  more  than  silently 
hope  what  it  most  wishes.”  It  would  indeed  be  presump¬ 
tuous  to  pass  a  censure,  or  to  hazard  an  opinion,  on  the 
private  devotions  of  any  man;  but  there  is  no  such  risk  in 
rejecting  the  apology  which  the  publishers  of  those  secret 
exercises  have  advanced  for  Mr.  Froude’s  departure  from 
the  habits  of  his  fellow  Christians.  Feeble,  indeed,  and 
emasculate  must  be  the  system,  which,  in  its  delicate  dis¬ 
taste  for  the  “popular  writers  of  the  day,”  would  bury  in 
silence  the  name  in  which  every  tongue  and  language  has 
been  summoned  to  worship  and  to  rejoice.  Well  may  “  awe 
and  fear  ”  become  all  who  assume  and  all  who  invoke  it. 
But  an  “  awe  ”  which  “  shrinks  to  utter”  the  name  of  Him 
who  was  born  at  Bethlehem,  and  yet  does  not  fear  to  use 
the  name  which  is  ineffable; — a  “fear”  which  can  make 


90 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


mention  of  the  Father,  but  may  not  speak  of  the  Brother, 
of  all — is  a  feeling  which  fairly  baffles  comprehension. 
There  is  a  much  more  simple,  though  a  less  imposing 
theory.  Mr.  Froude  permitted  himself,  and  was  encouraged 
by  his  correspondents,  to  indulge  in  the  language  of  an¬ 
tipathy  and  scorn  towards  a  large  body  of  his  fellow  Chris¬ 
tians.  It  tinges  his  letters,  his  journals,  and  is  not  without 
its  influence  even  on  his  devotions.  Those  despised  men 
too  often  celebrated  the  events  of  their  Redeemer’s  life,  and 
the  benefits  of  his  passion,  in  language  of  offensive  fami¬ 
liarity,  and  invoked  him  with  fond  and  feeble  epithets. 
Therefore,  a  good  Oxford  Catholic  must  envelop  in  mystic 
terms  all  allusion  to  Him  round  whom  as  its  centre  the 
whole  Christian  system  revolves.  The  line  of  demarcation 
between  themselves  and  these  coarse  sentimentalists  must 
be  broad  and  deep,  even  though  it  should  exclude  those  by 
whom  it  is  run,  from  all  the  peculiar  and  distinctive  ground 
on  which  the  standard  of  the  protestant  churches  has  been 
erected.  There  is  nothing  to  dread  from  such  hostility 
and  such  enemies.  A  fine  lady  visits  the  United  States, 
and,  in  loathing  against  the  tobaceonised  republic,  becomes 
an  absolutist.  A  “double  first-class”  theologian  overhears 
the  Evangelical  psalmody,  and  straightway  turns  catholic. 
But  Congress  will  not  dissolve  at  the  bidding  of  the  fair; 
nor  will  Exeter  hall  be  closed  to  propitiate  the  fastidious. 
The  martyrs  of  disgust  and  the  heroes  of  revolutions  are 
composed  of  opposite  materials,  and  are  cast  in  very  dif¬ 
ferent  moulds.  Nothing  truly  great  or  formidable  was  ever 
yet  accomplished,  in  thought- or  action,  by  men  whose  love 
for  truth  was  not  strong  enough  to  triumph  over  their  dis¬ 
like  of  the  offensive  objects  with  which  it  may  be  asso¬ 
ciated. 

Mr.  Froude  was  the  victim  of  these  associations.  No¬ 
thing  escapes  his  abhorrence  which  has  been  regarded  with 
favour  by  his  political  or  religious  antagonists.  The  Bill 
for  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  was  recommended  to  Parlia¬ 
ment  by  an  administration  more  than  suspected  of  Liberal¬ 
ism.  The  “  Witness  to  Catholic  Views,”  “  in  whose  sen¬ 
timents  as  a  whole,”  his  editors  concur,  visits  the  Wrest 
Indies,  and  they  are  not  afraid  to  publish  the  following 
report  of  his  leelings: — “I  have  felt  it  a  kind  of  duty  to 
maintain  in  my  mind  an  habitual  hostility  to  the  niggers, 
and  to  chuckle  over  the  failures  of  the  new  system,  as  if 


THE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


07 


these  poor  wretches  concentrated  in  themselves  all  the 
Whiggery,  dissent,  cant,  and  abomination  that  have  been 
ranged  on  their  side.”  Lest  this  should  pass  for  a  pleasant 
extravagance,  the  editors  enjoin  the  reader  not  to  “  confound 
the  author’s  view  of  the  negro  cause  and  of  the  abstract 
negro  with  his  feelings  towards  any  he  should  actually 
meet;”  and  Professor  Tholuck  is  summoned  from  Germany 
to  explain  how  the  “  originators  of  error”  may  lawfully  be 
the  objects  of  a  good  man’s  hate,  and  how  it  may  innocently 
overflow  upon  all  their  clients,  kindred  and  connexions. 
Mr.  Fronde’s  feelings  towards  the  “  abstract  negro  ”  would 
have  satisfied  the  learned  Professor  in  his  most  indignant 
mood.  “  1  am  ashamed,”  he  says,  “  1  cannot  get  over  my 
prejudices  against  the  niggers.” — “  Every  one  1  meet  seems 
to  me  like  an  incarnation  of  the  whole  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
and  Fowell  Buxton  at  their  head.” — “  The  thing  that  strikes 
me  as  most  remarkable  in  the  cut  of  these  niggers  is  exces¬ 
sive  immodesty,  a  forward  stupid  familiarity  intended  for 
civility,  which  prejudices  me  against  them  worse  even  than 
Buxton’s  cant  did.  It  is  getting  to  be  the  fashion  with 
every  body,  even  the  planters,  to  praise  the  emancipation 
and  Mr.  Stanley.”  Mr.  Froude,  or  rather  his  editors,  ap¬ 
pear  to  have  fallen  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  his  pro¬ 
fession  gave  him  not  merely  the  right  to  admonish,  but  the 
privilege  to  scold.  Lord  Stanley  and  Mr.  Buxton  have, 
however,  the  consolation  of  being  railed  at  in  good  com¬ 
pany.  Hampden  is  “  hated  ”  with  much  zeal,  though,  it  is 
admitted,  with  imperfect  knowledge.  Louis  Philippe,  and 
his  associates  of  the  Three  Days,  receive  the  following 
humane  benediction — “  I  sincerely  hope  the  march  of  mind 
in  France  may  yet  prove  a  bloody  one .”  “  The  election 

of  the  wretched  B.  for - ,  and  that  base  fellow  H.  for 

- ,  in  spite  of  the  exposure,”  &e.  Again,  the  editors 

protest  against  our  supposing  that  this  is  a  playful  exercise 
in  the  art  of  exaggeration.  “  It  should  be  observed,”  they 
say,  “  as  in  other  parts  of  this  volume,  that  the  author  used 
these  words  on  principle,  not  as  abuse,  but  as  expressing 
matters  of  fact,  as  a  way  of  bringing  before  his  own  mind 
things  as  they  are.” 

Milton,  however,  is  the  especial  object  of  Mr.  Froude’s 
virtuous  abhorrence.  He  is  “  a  detestable  author.”  Mr. 
Froude  rejoices  to  learn  something  of  the  Puritans,  because, 
as  he  says,  “  It  gives  me  a  better  right  to  hate  Milton,  and 
9 


08 


STEPHENS  MISCELLANIES. 


accounts  for  many  of  the  things  which  most  disgusted  me 
in  his  (not  in  my  sense  of  the  word,)  poetry.” — “  A  lady 
told  me  yesterday  that  you  wrote  the  article  of  Sacred 
Poetry,  &c.  I  thought  it  did  not  come  up  to  what  I  thought 
your  standard  of  aversion  to  Milton.”  Mr.  Froude  and  his 
editors  must  be  delivered  over  to  the  secular  arm  under  the 
writ  De  Heretico  Comburando  for  their  wilful  obstinacy  in 
rejecting  the  infallible  sentence  of  the  fathers  and  oecume¬ 
nical  counsels  of  the  church  poetical,  on  this  article  of  faith. 
There  is  no  room  for  mercy.  They  did  not  belong  to  the 
audience,  meet  but  few,  to  whom  the  immortal  addressed 
himself — to  that  little  company  to  which  alone  it  is  re¬ 
served  to  estimate  the  powers  of  such  a  mind,  and  reve¬ 
rently  to  notice  its  defects.  They  were  of  that  multitude 
who  have  to  make  their  choice  between  repeating  the 
established  creed  and  holding  their  peace.  Why  are  free¬ 
thinkers  in  literature  to  be  endured  more  than  in  religion? 
The  guilt  of  Liberalism  has  clearly  been  contracted  by  this 
rash  judgment;  and  Professor  Tholuck  being  the  witness, 
it  exposes  the  criminals  and  the  whole  society  of  Oriel, 
nay,  the  entire  University  itself,  to  the  diffusive  indignation 
of  all  who  cling  to  the  Catholic  faith  in  poetry. 

There  are  much  better  things  in  Mr.  Fronde’s  book  than 
the  preceding  quotations  might  appear  to  promise.  If  given 
as  specimens  of  his  power,  they  would  do  gross  injustice 
to  a  good  and  able  man,  a  ripe  scholar,  and  a  devout  Chris¬ 
tian.  But  as  illustrations  of  the  temper  and  opinions  of  those 
who  now  sit  in  Wycliffe’s  seat,  they  are  neither  unfair  nor 
unimportant.  And  they  may  also  convince  all  whom  it 
concerns,  that  hitherto,  at  least,  Oxford  has  not  given  birth 
to  a  new  race  of  giants,  by  whom  the  Evangelical  founders 
and  missionaries  of  the  Church  of  England  will  be  ex¬ 
pelled  from  their  ancient  dominion,  or  the  Protestant  world 
excluded  from  the  light  of  day  and  the  free  breath  of 
heaven. 

Whenever  the  time  shall  be  ripe  for  writing  the  ecclesi¬ 
astical  history  of  the  last  and  the  present  age,  a  curious 
chapter  may  be  devoted  to  the  rise  and  progress  of  the 
Evangelical  body  in  England  from  the  days  of  Whitfield 
to  our  own.  It  will  convey  many  important  lessons.  It 
will  manifest  the  irresistible  power  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Reformation  when  proclaimed  with  honesty  and  zeal,  even 
though  its  teachers  be  unskilled  in  those  studies  which  are 


TIIE  LIVES  OF  WHITFIELD  AND  FROUDE. 


99 


essential  to  a  complete  and  comprehensive  theology.  It 
will  show  that  infirmities  which,  not  without  some  reason, 
offend  the  more  cultivated,  and  disgust  the  more  fastidious 
members  of  the  Catholic  Church  amongst  us,  are  but  as  the 
small  dust  in  the  balance,  when  weighed  against  the  mighty 
energy  of  those  cardinal  truths  in  the  defence  of  which 
Wycliffe  and  Luther,  Knox  and  Calvin,  Ridley  and  Latimer, 
lived  and  laboured,  and  died.  It  may  also  prove  that  re¬ 
condite  learning,  deep  piety  and  the  purest  virtue  may  be 
all  combined  in  bosoms  which  are  yet  contracted  by  narrow 
and  unsuspected  prejudices.  But,  above  all,  it  may  teach 
mutual  charity;  admonishing  men  to  listen  with  kindness 
and  self-distrust  even  to  each  other’s  extravagant  claims  to 
an  exclusive  knowledge  of  the  Divine  will,  and  the  exclu¬ 
sive  possession  of  the  Divine  favour. 


D’AUBIGNE’S  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT 
REFORMATION.* 


(Edinburgh  Review,  1839.) 

English  literature  is  singularly  defective  in  whatever 
relates\to  the  Reformation  in  Germany  and  Switzerland, 
and  to  the  lives  of  the  great  men  by  whom  it  was  accom¬ 
plished,  A  native  of  this  island  who  would  know  any 
thing  to  the  purpose,  of  Reuchlin  or  Hutten,  or  Luther  or 
Melancthon,  of  Zuingle,  Bucer  or  CEcolampadius,  of  Cal¬ 
vin  or  Farel,  must  betake  himself  to  other  languages  than 
his  own.  To  fill  this  void  in  our  libraries,  is  an  enterprise 
which  might  stimulate  the  zeal,  and  establish  the  reputa¬ 
tion,  of  the  ripest  student  of  Ecclesiastical  History  amongst 
us.  In  no  other  field  could  he  discover  more  ample  re¬ 
sources  for  narratives  of  dramatic  interest;  for  the  delinea¬ 
tion  of  characters  contrasted  in  every  thing  except  their 
common  design;  for  exploring  the  influence  of  philosophy, 
arts,  and  manners,  on  the  fortunes  of  mankind;  and  for 
reverently  tracing  the  footsteps  of  Divine  Providence, 
moving  among  the  ways  and  works  of  men,  imparting  dig¬ 
nity  to  events  otherwise  unimportant,  and  a  deep  signifi¬ 
cance  to  occurrences  in  any  other  view  as  trivial  as  a 
border  raid,  or  the  palaver  of  an  African  village. 

Take,  for  example,  the  life  of  Ulric  de  Hutten,  a  noble, 
a  warrior,  and  a  rake;  a  theologian  withal,  and  a  reformer; 
and  at  the  same  time  the  author,  or  one  of  the  authors,  of 
a  satire  to  be  classed  amongst  the  most  effective  which  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  Had  the  recreative  powers  of  Walter 
Scott  been  exercised  on  Iiutten’s  story,  how  familiar  would 
all  Christendom  have  been  with  the  stern  Baron  of  Fran- 

*  History  of  the  Great  Reformation  of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  in 
Germany*  Switzerland,  &c.  By  J.  H.  Merle  D’Aubigne,  Presi¬ 
dent  of  the  Theological  School  of  Geneva.  8vo.  Vol.  I.  London, 
1838. 


LUTHER  AND  TIIE  REFORMATION. 


101 


conia,  and  Ulric,  his  petulant  boy;  with  the  fat  Abbot  of 
Foulde  driving  the  fiery  youth  by  penances  and  homilies 
to  range  a  literary  vagabond  on  the  face  of  the  earth;  with 
the  burgomaster  of  Frankfort,  avenging  by  a  still  more  for¬ 
midable  punishment  the  pasquinade  which  had  insulted  his 
civic  dignity.  How  vivid  would  be  the  image  of  Hutten 
at  the  siege  of  Pavia,  soothing  despair  itself  by  writing  his 
own  epitaph;  giving  combat  to  five  Frenchmen  for  the 
glory  of  Maximilian;  and  receiving  from  the  delighted  Em¬ 
peror  the  frugal  reward  of  a  poetic  crown.  Then  would 
have  succeeded  the  court  and  princely  patronage  of  “  the 
Pope  of  Mentz,”  and  the  camp  and  castle  of  the  Lord  of 
Sickengen,  until  the  chequered  scene  closed  with  Ulric’s 
death-bed  employment  of  producing  a  satire  on  his  stupid 
physician.  All  things  were  welcome  to  Hutten;  arms  and 
love,  theology  and  debauchery,  a  disputation  with  the  Tho- 
mists,  a  controversy  with  Erasmus,  or  a  war  to  the  knife 
with  the  dunces  of  his  age.  His  claim  to  have  written  the 
Epistolx  Obscurorum  Virorum,  has,  indeed,  been  dis¬ 
puted,  though  with  little  apparent  reason.  It  is  at  least 
clear  that  he  asserted  his  own  title,  and  that  no  other  can¬ 
didate  for  that  equivocal  honour  united  in  himself  the  wit 
and  learning,  the  audacity  and  licentiousness,  which  suc¬ 
cessively  adorn  and  disfigure  that  extraordinary  collection. 
Neither  is  it  quite  just  to  exclude  the  satirist  from  the  list 
of  those  who  lent  a  material  aid  to  the  Reformation.  It  is 
not,  certainly,  by  the  heartiest  or  the  most  contemptuous 
laugh  that  dynasties,  w’hether  civil  or  religious,  are  sub¬ 
verted;  but  it  would  be  unfair  to  deny  altogether  to  Hutten 
the  praise  of  having  contributed  by  his  merciless  banter  to 
the  successes  of  wiser  and  better  men  than  himself.  To 
set  on  edge  the  teeth  of  the  Ciceronians  by  the  Latinity  of 
the  correspondents  of  the  profound  Ortuinus,  was  but  a 
pleasant  jest;  but  it  was  something  more  to  confer  an  im¬ 
mortality  of  ridicule  on  the  erudite  doctors  who  seriously 
apprehended,  from  the  study  of  Greek  and  Hebrew,  the 
revival  at  once  of  the  worship  of  Minerva,  and  of  the  rite 
of  circumcision.  It  was  in  strict  satirical  justice,  that  cha¬ 
racters  were  assigned  to  these  sages  in  a  farce  as  broad  as 
was  ever  drawn  by  Aristophanes  or  Moliere;  and  which 
was  destitute  neither  of  their  riotous  mirth,  nor  even  of 
some  of  that  deep  wisdom  which  it  was  their  pleasure  to 
exhibit  beneath  that  mask. 


9* 


102 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


Mach  as  .Luther,  himself,  asper ,  incolumi  gravitate jocum 
tentavit,  he  received  with  little  relish  these  sallies  of  his 
facetious  ally;  whom  he  not  only  censured  for  employing 
the  language  of  reproach  and  insult,  but,  harder  still,  de¬ 
scribed  as  a  buffoon.  It  is,  perhaps,  well  for  the  dignity 
of  the  stern  Reformer  that  the  taunt  was  unknown  to  the 
object  of  it;  for,  great  as  he  was,  Hutten  would  not  have 
spared  him;  and  as  the  quiver  of  few  satirists  has  been 
stored  with  keener  or  more  envenomed  shafts,  so,  few  illus¬ 
trious  men  have  exposed  to  such  an  assailant  a  greater 
number  of  vulnerable  points.  But  of  these,  or  of  his  other 
private  habits,  little  is  generally  recorded.  History  having 
claimed  Luther  for  her  own,  Biography  has  yielded  to  the 
pretensions  of  her  more  stately  sister;  and  the  domestic 
and  interior  life  of  the  antagonist  of  Leo  and  of  Charles 
yet  remains  to  be  written.  The  materials  are  abundant, 
and  of  the  highest  interest; — a  collection  of  letters  scarcely 
less  voluminous  than  those  of  Voltaire;  the  C olio  quia  Men- 
salici,  in  some  parts  of  more  doubtful  authenticity,  yet,  on 
the  whole,  a  genuine  record  of  his  conversation;  his  theo¬ 
logical  writings,  a  mine  of  egotisms  of  the  richest  ore;  and 
the  works  of  Melancthon,  Seckendorf,  Cochlceus,  Erasmus, 
and  many  others,  who  flourished  in  an  age  when,  amongst 
learned  men,  to  write  and  to  live  were  almost  convertible 
terms.  The  volume  whose  title-page  we  have  transcribed, 
is,  in  fact,  an  unfinished  life  of  Luther,  closing  with  his  ap¬ 
peal  from  the  Pope  to  a  general  Council.  We  have  select¬ 
ed  it  as  the  most  elaborate,  from  a  long  catalogue  of  works  on 
the  Reformation,  recently  published  on  the  continent,  by 
the  present  inheritors  of  the  principles  and  passions  which 
first  agitated  Europe  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  By  far  the  most  amusing  of  the  series  is  the  collec¬ 
tion  of  Lutheriana  by  M.  Michelet,  which  we  are  bound 
to  notice  with  especial  gratitude,  as  affording  a  greater 
number  of  valuable  references  than  all  other  books  of  the 
same  kind  put  together.  It  was  drawn  up  as  a  relaxation 
from  those  severer  studies  on  which  M.  Michelet’s  histori¬ 
cal  fame  depends.  But  the  pastime  of  some  men  is  worth 
far  more  than  the  labours  of  the  rest;  and  this  compilation 
lias  every  merit  but  that  of  an  appropriate  title;  for  an  auto¬ 
biography  it  assuredly  is  not,  in  any  of  the  senses,  accurate 
or  popular,  of  that  much  abused  word.  Insulated  in  our 
habits  and  pursuits,  not  less  than  in  our  geographical  posi- 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


103 


tion,  it  is  but  tardily  that,  within  the  intrenchment  of  our 
four  seas,  we  sympathize  with  the  intellectual  movements 
of  the  nations  which  dwell  beyond  them.  Many,  how¬ 
ever,  are  the  motives,  of  at  least  equal  force  in  these  islands 
as  in  the  old  and  new  continents  of  the  Christian  world, 
for  diverting  the  eye  from  the  present  to  the  past,  from 
those  who  would  now  reform,  to  those  who  first  reformed, 
the  churches  of  Europe.  Or,  if  graver  reasons  could  not 
be  found,  it  is  beyond  all  dispute  that  the  professors  of 
Wittemburg,  three  hundred  years  ago,  formed  a  group  as 
much  more  entertaining  than  those  of  Oxford  at  present,  as 
the  contest  with  Dr.  Eck  exceeded  in  interest  the  squabble 
with  Dr.  Hampden. 

The  old  Adam  in  Martin  Luther  (a  favourite  subject  of 
his  discourse,)  was  a  very  formidable  personage;  lodged  in 
a  bodily  frame  of  surpassing  vigour,  solicited  by  vehement 
appetites,  and  alive  to  all  the  passions  by  which  man  is 
armed  for  offensive  or  defensive  warfare  with  his  fellows. 
In  accordance  with  a  general  law,  that  temperament  was 
sustained  by  nerves  which  shrunk  neither  from  the  endu¬ 
rance  nor  the  infliction  of  necessary  pain;  and  by  a  courage 
which  rose  at  the  approach  of  difficulty,  and  exulted  in  the 
presence  of  danger.  A  rarer  prodigality  of  nature  combined 
with  these  endowments  an  inflexible  reliance  on  the  con¬ 
clusions  of  his  own  understanding,  and  on  the  energy  of 
his  own  will.  He  came  forth  on  the  theatre  of  life  another 
Samson  Agonistes  “  with  plain  heroic  magnitude  of  mind, 
and  celestial  vigour  armed;”  ready  to  wage  an  unequal  com¬ 
bat  writh  the  haughtiest  of  the  giants  of  Gath;  or  to  shake 
down,  though  it  were  on  his  own  head,  the  columns  of  the 
proudest  of  her  temples.  Viewed  in  his  belligerent  aspect, 
he  might  have  seemed  a  being  cut  off  from  the  common 
brotherhood  of  mankind,  and  bearing  from  on  high  a  com¬ 
mission  to  bring  to  pass  the  remote  ends  of  Divine  bene¬ 
volence,  by  means  appalling  to  human  guilt  and  to  human 
weakness.  But  he  was  reclaimed  into  the  bosom  of  the 
great  family  of  man,  by  bonds  fashioned  in  strength  and 
number  proportioned  to  the  vigour  of  the  propensities  they 
were  intended  to  control.  There  brooded  over  him  a  con¬ 
stitutional  melancholy,  sometimes  engendering  sadness, 
but  more  often  giving  birth  to  dreams  so  wild,  that,  if 
vivified  by  the  imagination  of  Dante,  they  might  have  passed 
into  visions  as  awful  and  majestic  as  those  of  the  Inferno . 


104 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


As  these  mists  rolled  away,  bright  gleams  of  sunshine  took 
their  place,  and  that  robust  mind  yielded  itself  to  social  en¬ 
joyments,  with  the  hearty  relish,  the  broad  humour,  and 
the  glorious  profusion  of  sense  and  nonsense,  which  betoken 
the  relaxations  of  those  who  are  for  the  moment  abdi¬ 
cating  the  mastery,  to  become  the  companions  of  ordinary 
man.  Luther  had  other  and  yet  more  potent  spells  with 
which  to  exorcise  the  demons  who  haunted  him.  He  had 
ascertained  and  taught  that  the  spirit  of  darkness  abhors 
sweet  sounds  not  less  than  light  itself;  for  music,  while  it 
chases  away  the  evil  suggestions,  effectually  baffles  the 
wiles  of  the  tempter.  His  lute,  and  hand,  and  voice,  accom¬ 
panying  his  own  solemn  melodies,  were  therefore  raised 
to  repel  the  more  vehement  aggressions  of  the  enemy  of 
mankind;  whose  feebler  assaults  he  encountered  by  study¬ 
ing  the  politics  of  a  rookery,  by  assigning  to  each  beauti¬ 
ful  creation  of  his  flower-beds  an  appropriate  sylph  or  ge¬ 
nius,  by  the  company  of  his  Catherine  de  Bora,  and  the 
sports  of  their  saucy  John  and  playful  Magdalene. 

The  name  of  Catherine  has  long  enjoyed  a  wide  but 
doubtful  celebrity.  She  was  a  lady  of  noble  birth,  and  was 
still  young  when  she  renounced  the  ancient  faith,  her  con¬ 
vent,  and  her  vows,  to  become  the  wife  of  Martin  Luther. 
From  this  portentous  union  of  a  monk  and  nun,  the  “ob¬ 
scure  men”  confidently  predicted  the  birth  of  Antichrist; 
while  the  wits  and  scholars  greeted  their  nuptials  with  a 
thick  hail-storm  of  epigrams,  hymns,  and  dithyrambics,  the 
learned  Eccius  himself  chiming  into  the  loud  chorus  with 
an  elaborate  epithalamium.  The  bridegroom  met  the 
tempest,  with  the  spirit  of  another  Benedict,  by  a  coun¬ 
ter-blast  of  invective  and  sarcasms,  which,  afterwards  col¬ 
lected  under  the  head  of  “the  Lion  and  the  Ass,”  perpetu¬ 
ated  the  memory  of  this  redoubtable  controversy.  “My 
enemies,”  he  exclaimed,  “triumphed.  They  shouted,  Io, 
Jo!  I  was  resolved  to  show  that,  old  and  feeble  as  I  am,  I 
am  not  going  to  sound  a  retreat.  I  trust  I  shall  do  still 
more  to  spoil  their  merriment.” 

This  indiscreet  if  not  criminal  marriage,  scarcely  ad¬ 
mitted  a  more  serious  defence.  Yet  Luther  was  not  a 
man  to  do  any  thing  which  he  was  not  prepared  to  justify. 
He  had  inculcated  on  others  the  advantages  of  the 
conjugal  state,  and  was  bound  to  enforce  his  precepts  by 
his  example.  The  war  of  the  peasants  had  brought  re- 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


105 


proach  on  the  principles  of  the  Reformation;  and  it  was 
incumbent  on  him  to  sustain  the  minds  of  his  followers, 
and  to  bear  his  testimony  to  evangelical  truth  by  deeds  as 
well  as  words.  Therefore,  it  was  fit  that  he  should  marry 
a  nun.  Such  is  the  logic  of  inclination,  and  such  the  pre¬ 
sumption  of  uninterrupted  success.  “Dr.  Ortuinus”  him¬ 
self  never  lent  his  venerable  sanction  to  a  stranger  sophis¬ 
try,  than  that  which  could  thus  discover  in  one  great 
scandal  an  apology  for  another  far  more  justly  offensive. 

Catherine  was  a  very  pretty  woman,  if  Holbein’s  por¬ 
trait  may  be  believed;  although  even  her  personal  charms 
have  been  rudely  impugned  by  her  husband’s  enemies,  in 
grave  disquisitions  devoted  to  that  momentous  question. 
Better  still,  she  was  a  faithful  and  affectionate  wife.  But 
there  is  a  no  less  famous  Catherine  to  whom  she  bore  a 
strong  family  resemblance.  She  brought  from  her  nun¬ 
nery  an  anxious  mind,  a  shrewish  temper,  and  great  volu¬ 
bility  of  speech.  Luther’s  arts  were  not  those  of  Petru- 
chio.  With  him  reverence  for  woman  was  at  once  a  natu¬ 
ral  instinct  and  a  point  of  doctrine.  He  observed,  that 
when  the  first  woman  was  brought  to  the  first  man  to  re¬ 
ceive  her  name,  he  called  her  not  wife,  but  mother — 
“Eve,  the  mother  of  all  living” — a  word,  he  says,  “  more 
eloquent  than  ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  Demosthenes,” 
So,  like  a  wise  and  kind-hearted  man,  when  his  Catherine 
prattled  he  smiled;  when  she  frowned,  he  playfully  stole 
away  her  anger,  and  chided  her  anxieties  with  the  gentlest 
soothing.  A  happier  or  a  more  peaceful  home  was  not  to 
be  found  in  the  land  of  domestic  tenderness.  Yet,  the 
confession  must  be  made,  that,  from  the  first  to  the  last, 
this  love-tale  is  nothing  less  than  a  case  of  Isesci  majestas 
against  the  sovereignty  of  romance.  Luther  and  his  bride 
did  not  meet  on  either  side  with  the  raptures  of  a  first  af¬ 
fection.  He  had  long  before  sighed  for  the  fair  Ave  Shon- 
felden,  and  she  had  not  concealed  her  attachment  for  a 
certain  Jerome  Baungartner.  Ave  had  bestowed  herself 
in  marriage  on  a  physician  of  Prussia:  and  before  Luther’s 
irrevocable  vows  were  pledged,  Jerome  received  from  his 
great  rival  an  intimation  that  he  still  possessed  the  heart, 
and,  with  common  activity,  might  eyen  yet  secure  the 
hand  of  Catherine.  But  honest  Jerome  was  not  a  man  to 
be  hurried.  He  silently  resigned  his  pretensions  to  his 
illustrious  competitor,  who,  even  in  the  moment  of  success, 


106 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


had  the  discernment  to  perceive,  and  the  frankness  to  avow, 
that  his  love  was  not  of  a  flaming  or  ungovernable  nature. 

“Nothing  on  this  earth,”  said  the  good  Dame  Ursula 
Schweiekard,  with  whom  Luther  boarded  when  at  school 
at  Eisenach,  “  is  of  such  inestimable  value  as  a  woman’s 
love.”  This  maxim,  recommended  more,  perhaps,  by 
truth  than  originality,  dwelt  long  on  the  mind  and  on  the 
tongue  of  the  Reformer.  To  have  dismissed  this  or  any 
other  text  without  a  commentary  would  have  been  abhor¬ 
rent  from  his  temper;  and  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Catherine 
he  thus  insists  on  a  kindred  doctrine,  the  converse  of  the 
first.  “  The  greatest  favour  of  God  is  to  have  a  good  and 
pious  husband,  to  whom  you  can  intrust  your  all,  your 
person,  and  even  your  life;  whose  children  and  yours  are 
the  same.  Catherine,  you  have  a  pious  husband  who 
loves  you.  You  are  an  empress;  thank  God  for  it.”  His 
conjugal  meditations  were  often  in  a  gayer  mood;  as,  for 
example,-— “  If  I  were  going  to  make  love  again,  I  would 
carve  an  obedient  woman  out  of  marble,  in  despair  of  find¬ 
ing  one  in  any  other  way.” — “  During  the  first  year  of  our 
marriage  she  would  sit  by  my  side  while  I  was  at  my 
books,  and,  not  having  any  thing  else  to  say,  would  ask 
me  whether  in  Prussia  the  Margrave  and  the  house  steward 
were  not  always  brothers. — Did  you  say  your  Pater, 
Catherine,  before  you  began  that  sermon?  If  you  had,  I 
think  you  would  have  been  forbidden  to  preach.”  He  ad¬ 
dresses  her  sometimes  as  my  Lord  Catherine,  or  Catherine 
the  Queen,  the  Empress,  the  Doctoress;  or  as  Catherine 
the  rich  and  noble  Lady  of  Zeilsdorf,  where  they  had  a 
cottage  and  a  few  roods  of  ground.  But  as  age  advanced, 
these  playful  sallies  were  abandoned  for  the  following 
graver  and  more  affectionate  style.  “To  the  gracious 
Lady  Catherine  Luther,  my  dear  wife,  who  vexes  herself 
overmuch,  grace  and  peace  in  the  Lord!  Dear  Catherine, 
you  should  read  St.  John,  and  what  is  said  in  the  Cate¬ 
chism  of  the  confidence  to  be  reposed  in  God.  Indeed 
you  torment  yourself  as  though  he  were  not  Almighty,  and 
could  not  produce  new  Doctors  Martin  by  the  score,  if  the 
old  doctor  should  drown  himself  in  the  Saal.” — “There 
is  one  who  watches  over  me  more  effectually  than  thou 
canst,  or  than  all  the  angels.  He  sits  at  the  right  hand  of 
the  Father  Almighty.  Therefore  be  calm.” 

There  were  six  children  of  this  marriage;  and  it  is  at 


LUTIIER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


107 


once  touching  and  amusing  to  see  with  what  adroitness 
Luther  contrived  to  gratify  at  once  his  tenderness  as  a  fa¬ 
ther,  and  his  taste  as  a  theologian.  When  the  brightening 
eye  of  one  of  the  urchins  round  his  table  confessed  the  al¬ 
lurements  of  a  downy  peach,  it  was  “the  image  of  a  soul 
rejoicing  in  hope.”  Over  an  infant  pressed  to  his  mother’s 
bosom,  thus  moralized  the  severe  but  affectionate  reformer: 
“That  babe  and  every  thing  else  which  belongs  to  us  is 
hated  by  the  Pope,  by  Duke  George,  by  their  adherents, 
and  by  all  the  devils.  Yet,  dear  little  fellow,  he  troubles 
himself  not  a  whit  for  all  these  powerful  enemies,  he  gaily 
sucks  the  breast,  looks  round  him  with  a  loud  laugh,  and 
lets  them  storm  as  they  like.”  There  were  darker  sea¬ 
sons,  when  even  theology  and  polemics  gave  way  to  the 
more  powerful  voice  of  nature;  nor,  indeed,  has  the  deepest 
wisdom  any  thing  to  add  to  his  lamentation  over  the  bier 
of  his  daughter  Magdalene.  “Such  is  the  power  of  natu¬ 
ral  affection,  that  I  cannot  endure  this  without  tears  and 
groans,  or  rather  an  utter  deadness  of  heart.  At  the  bottom 
of  my  soul  are  engraved  her  looks,  her  words,  her  ges¬ 
tures,  as  I  gazed  at  her  in  her  life-time  and  on  her  death¬ 
bed.  My  dutiful,  my  gentle  daughter!  Even  the  death 
of  Christ  (and  what  are  all  deaths  compared  to  his?)  cannot 
tear  me  from  this  thought  as  it  should.  She  was  playful, 
lovely,  and  full  of  love!” 

Whatever  others  may  think  of  these  nursery  tales,  we 
have  certain  reasons  of  our  own  for  suspecting  that  there 
is  not,  on  either  side  of  the  Tweed,  a  Papa  who  will  not 
read  the  following  letter,  sent  by  Luther  to  his  eldest  boy 
during  the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  with  more  interest  than  any 
of  all  the  five  “  Confessions  ”  presented  to  the  Emperor  on 
that  memorable  occasion. 

“Grace  and  peace  be  writh  thee,  my  dear  little  boy!  I 
rejoice  to  find  that  you  are  attentive  to  your  lessons  and 
your  prayers.  Persevere,  my  child,  and  when  I  come 
home  I  will  bring  you  some  pretty  fairing.  1  know  of  a 
beautiful  garden,  full  of  children  in  golden  dresses,  who 
run  about  under  the  trees,  eating  apples,  pears,  cherries, 
nuts,  and  plums.  They  jump  and  sing  and  are  full  of  glee, 
and  they  have  pretty  little  horses  with  golden  bridles  and 
silver  saddles.  As  I  went  by  this  garden  I  asked  the  owner 
of  it  who  those  children  were,  and  he  told  me  that  they 
were  the  good  children,  who  loved  to  say  their  prayers, 


108 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


and  to  learn  their  lessons,  and  who  fear  God.  Then  I 
said  to  him,  Dear  sir,  I  have  a  boy,  little  John  Luther; 
may  not  he  too  come  to  this  garden,  to  eat  these  beautiful 
apples  and  pears,  to  ride  these  pretty  little  horses,  and  to 
play  with  the  other  children?  And  the  man  said,  If  he  is 
very  good,  if  he  says  his  prayers,  and  learns  his  lessons 
cheerfully  he  may  come,  and  he  may  bring  with  him  little 
Philip  and  little  James.  Here  they  will  find  fifes  and 
drums  and  other  nice  instruments  to  play  upon,  and  they 
shall  dance  and  shoot  with  little  crossbows.  Then  the 
man  showed  me  in  the  midst  of  the  garden  a  beautiful 
meadow  to  dance  in.  But  all  this  happened  in  the  morn¬ 
ing  before  the  children  had  dined;  so  1  could  not  stay  till 
the  beginning  of  the  dance,  but  I  said  to  the  man,  I  will  go 
and  write  to  my  dear  little  John,  and  teach  him  to  be  good, 
to  say  his  prayers,  and  learn  his  lessons,  that  he  may  come 
to  this  garden.  But  he  has  an  Aunt  Magdalene,  whom  he 
loves  very  much, — may  he  bring  her  with  him?  The  man 
said,  Yes,  tell  him  that  they  may  come  together.  Be  good, 
therefore,  dear  child,  and  tell  Philip  and  James  the  same, 
that  you  may  all  come  and  play  in  this  beautiful  garden. 
1  commit  you  to  the  care  of  God.  Give  my  love  to  your 
Aunt  Magdalene,  and  kiss  her  for  me.  From  your  Papa 
who  loves  you, — Martin  Luther. 

If  it  is  not  a  sufficient  apology  for  the  quotation  of  this 
fatherly  epistle  to  say,  that  it  is  the  talk  of  Martin  Luther, 
a  weightier  defence  may  be  drawn  from  the  remark  that 
it  illustrates  one  of  his  most  serious  opinions.  The  views 
commonly  received  amongst  Christians,  of  the  nature  of 
the  happiness  reserved  in  another  state  of  being,  for  the 
obedient  and  faithful  in  this  life,  he  regarded,  if  not  as  er¬ 
roneous,  yet  as  resting  on  no  sufficient  foundation,  and  as 
ill  adapted  to  “allure  to  brighter  worlds.”  lie  thought 
that  the  enjoyments  of  heaven  had  been  refined  away  to 
such  a  point  of  evanescent  spirituality  as  to  deprive  them 
of  their  necessary  attraction;  and  the  allegory  invented  for 
the  delight  of  little  John,  was  but  the  adaptation  to  the 
thoughts  of  a  child  of  a  doctrine  which  he  was  accustomed 
to  inculcate  on  others,  under  imagery  more  elevated  than 
that  of  drums,  crossbows,  and  golden  bridles. 

There  is  but  one  step  from  the  nursery  to  the  servant’s 
hall;  and  they  who  have  borne  with  the  parental  counsels  to 
little  John,  may  endure  the  following  letter  respecting  an 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


109 


aged  namesake  of  his,  who  was  about  to  quit  Luther's  fa¬ 
mily: — 

“  We  must  dismiss  old  John  with  honour.  We  know 
that  he  has  always  served  us  faithfully  and  zealously,  and 
as  became  a  Christian  servant.  What  have  we  not  given 
to  vagabonds  and  thankless  students  who  have  made  a  bad 
use  of  our  money?  So  we  will  not  be  niggardly  to  so  wor¬ 
thy  a  servant,  on  whom  our  money  will  be  bestowed  in  a 
manner  pleasing  to  God.  You  need  not  remind  me  that 
we  are  not  rich.  I  would  gladly  give  him  ten  florins,  if  I 
had  them,  but  do  not  let  it  be  less  than  five.  He  is  not 
able  to  do  much  for  himself.  Pray  help  him  in  any  other 
way  you  can.  Think  how  this  money  can  be  raised.  There 
is  a  silver  cup  that  might  be  pawned.  Sure  I  am  that 
God  will  not  desert  us.  Adieu.” 

Luther’s  pleasures  were  as  simple  as  his  domestic  affec¬ 
tions  were  pure.  He  wrote  metrical  versions  of  the  Psalms, 
well  described  by  Mr.  Hallam,  as  holding  a  middle  place 
between  the  doggerel  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins,  and  the 
meretricious  ornaments  of  the  later  versifiers  of  the  Songs 
of  David.  He  wedded  to  them  music  of  his  own,  to  which 
the  most  obtuse  ear  cannot  listen  without  emotion.  The 
greatest  of  the  sons  of  Germany  was,  in  this  respect,  a  true 
child  of  that  vocal  land;  for  such  was  his  enthusiasm  for 
the  art  that  he  assigned  to  it  a  place  second  only  to  that  of 
theology  itself.  He  was  also  an  ardent  lover  of  painting, 
and  yielded  to  Albert  Durer  the  homage  which  he  denied 
to  Cajetan  and  Erasmus.  His  are  amongst  the  earliest 
works  embellished  by  the  aid  of  the  engraver.  With  the 
birds  of  his  native  country  he  had  established  a  strict  inti¬ 
macy,  watching,  smiling,  and  thus  moralizing  over  their 
habits.  “  That  little  fellow,”  he  said  of  a  bird  going  to 
roost,  “  has  chosen  his  shelter,  and  is  quietly  rocking  him¬ 
self  to  sleep  without  a  care  for  to-morrow’s  lodging,  calmly 
holding  by  his  little  twig,  and  leaving  God  to  think  for 
him.”  The  following  parable,  in  a  letter  to  Spalatin,  is 
in  a  more  ambitious  strain. 

“  You  are  going  to  Augsburg  without  having  taken  the 
auspices,  and  ignorant  when  you  will  be  allowed  to  begin. 
I,  on  the  other  hand,  am  in  the  midst  of  the  Comitia,  in 
the  presence  of  illustrious  sovereigns,  kings,  dukes,  gran¬ 
dees,  and  nobles,  who  are  solemnly  debating  affairs  of  state, 
and  making  the  air  rinw  with  their  deliberations  and  de- 

o  O 

10 


no 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


crees.  Instead  of  imprisoning  themselves  in  those  royal 
caverns  which  you  call  palaces  they  hold  their  assemblies  in 
the  sunshine,  with  the  arch  of  heaven  for  their  tent,  sub¬ 
stituting  for  costly  tapestries  the  foliage  of  trees,  where 
they  enjoy  their  liberty.  Instead  of  confining  themselves 
in  parks  and  pleasure  grounds,  they  range  over  the  earth 
to  its  utmost  limits.  They  detest  the  stupid  luxuries  of 
silk  and  embroidery,  but  all  dress  in  the  same  colour,  and 
put  on  very  much  the  same  looks.  To  say  the  truth,  they 
all  wear  black,  and  all  sing  one  tune.  It  is  a  song  formed 
of  a  single  note,  with  no  variation  but  what  is  produced 
by  the  pleasing  contrast  of  young  and  old  voices.  I  have 
seen  and  heard  nothing  of  their  emperor.  They  have  a 
supreme  contempt  for  the  quadruped  employed  by  our  gen¬ 
try,  having  a  much  better  method  for  setting  the  heaviest 
artillery  at  defiance.  As  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  under¬ 
stand  their  resolutions  by  the  aid  of  an  interpreter,  they 
have  unanimously  determined  to  wage  war  through  the 
whole  year  against  the  wheat,  oats,  and  barley,  and  the 
best  corn  and  fruits  of  every  kind.  There  is  reason  to  fear, 
that  victory  will  attend  them  every  where,  for  they  are  a 
skilful  and  crafty  race  of  warriors,  equally  expert  in  qpl- 
lecting  booty  by  violence  and  by  surprise.  It  has  afforded 
me  great  pleasure  to  attend  their  assemblies  as  an  idle  looker 
on.  The  hope  I  cherish  of  the  triumphs  of  their  valour 
over  wheat  and  barley,  and  every  other  enemy,  renders  me 
the  sincere  and  faithful  friend  of  these  patres  patriae ,  these 
saviours  of  the  commonwealth.  If  I  could  serve  them  by 
a  wish,  I  would  implore  their  deliverance  from  their  pre¬ 
sent  ugly  name  of  Crows.  This  is  nonsense,  but  there  is 
some  seriousness  in  it.  It  is  a  jest  which  helps  me  to 
drive  away  painful  thoughts.” 

The  love  of  fables,  which  Luther  thus  indulged  at  one  of 
the  most  eventful  eras  of  his  life,  was  amongst  his  favour¬ 
ite  amusements.  iEsop  lay  on  the  same  table  with  the 
book  of  Psalms,  and  the  two  translations  proceeded  alter¬ 
nately,  Except  the  Bible,  he  declared  that  he  knew  no 
better  book;  and  pronounced  it  not  to  be  the  work  of  any 
single  author,  but  the  fruit  of  the  labours  of  the  greatest 
minds  in  all  ages.  It  supplied  him  with  endless  jests  and 
allusions;  as  for  example,— The  dog  in  charge  of  the 
butcher’s  tray,  unable  to  defend  it  from  the  avidity  of  other 
curs,  said — Well,  then,  I  may  as  well  have  my  share  of 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


Ill 


the  meat,  and  fell-to  accordingly;  which  is  precisely  what 
the  Emperor  is  doing  with  the  property  of  the  church.” 

Few  really  great  men,  indeed,  have  hazarded  a  larger 
number  of  jokes  in  the  midst  of  a  circle  of  note-taking  as¬ 
sociates.  They  have  left  on  record  the  following  amidst 
many  other  memorabilia; — “  God  made  the  Priest.  The 
Devil  set  about  an  imitation,  but  he  made  the  tonsure  too 
large,  and  produced  a  Monk.”  A  cup  composed  of  five 
hoops  or  rings  of  glass  of  different  colours  circulated  at  his 
table.  Eisleben,  an  Antinomian,  was  of  the  party.  Lu¬ 
ther  pledged  him  in  the  following  words:— ^ “  Within  the 
second  of  these  rings  lie  the  Ten  Commandments;  within 
the  next  ring  the  Creed;  then  comes  the  Paternoster;  the 
Catechism  lies  at  the  bottom.”  So  saying,  he  drank  it 
off'.  When  Eisleben’s  turn  came,  he  emptied  the  cup  only 
down  to  the  beginning  of  the  second  ring.  “  Ah,”  said 
Luther,  “  I  knew  that  he  would  stick  at  the  Command¬ 
ments,  and  therefore  would  not  reach  the  Creed,  the  Lord’s 
Prayer,  or  the  Catechism.” 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  Luther’s  pleasantries 
are  less  remarkable  for  wit  or  delicacy  than  for  the  union 
of  strong  sense  and  honest  merriment.  They  wrere  the 
careless,  though  not  inconsiderate  sport  of  a  free-spoken 
man,  in  a  circle  where  religion  and  modesty,  protected  by 
an  inbred  reverence,  did  not  seek  the  doubtful  defence  of 
conventional  outworks.  But  pensive  thoughts  were  the 
more  habitual  food  of  his  overburdened  mind.  Neither 
social  enjoyments,  nor  the  .tenderness  of  domestic  life, 
could  ever  long  repel  the  melancholy  which  brooded  over 
him.  It  breaks  out  in  every  part  of  his  correspondence, 
and  tinges  all  his  recorded  conversation.  “  Because,”  he 
says,  “  my  manner  is  sometimes  gay  and  joyous,  many 
think  that  I  am  always  treading  on  roses.  God  knows 
what  is  in  my  heart.  There  is  nothing  in  this  life  which 
gives  me  pleasure:  I  am  tired  of  it.  May  the  Lord  come 
quickly  and  take  me  henee.  Let  him  come  to  his  final 
judgment — I  await  the  blow.  Let  him  hurl  his  thunders, 
that  I  may  be  at  rest.  Forty  years  more  life!  I  would  not 
purchase  Paradise  at  such  a  price.”  Yet,  with  this  lassi¬ 
tude  of  the  world,  his  contemplations  of  death  were  so¬ 
lemn,  even  to  sadness.  “  How  gloriously,”  said  his 
friend,  Dr.  Jonas,  “does  St.  Paul  speak  of  his  own  death. 
I  cannot  enter  into  this.”  “  It  appears  to  me,”  replied 


112 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


Luther,  “  that  when  meditating  on  that  subject,  even  St. 
Paul  himself  could  not  have  felt  all  the  energy  which  pos¬ 
sessed  him  when  he  wrote.  I  preach,  write,  and  talk  about 
dying,  with  a  greater  firmness  than  I  really  possess,  or  tha.n 
others  ascribe  to  me.”  In  common  with  all  men  of  this 
temperament,  he  was  profuse  in  extolling  the  opposite  dis¬ 
position.  “  The  birds,”  he  says,  “  must  fly  over  our  heads, 
but  why  allow  them  to  roost  in  our  hair?”  “  Gaiety  and 
a  light  heart,  in  all  virtue  and  decorum,  are  the  best  medi¬ 
cine  for  the  young,  or  rather  for  all.  I  who  have  passed 
my  life  in  dejection  and  gloomy  thoughts,  nor  catch  at  en¬ 
joyment,  come  from  what  quarter  it  may,  and  even  seek 
for  it.  Criminal  pleasure,  indeed,  comes  from  Satan,  but 
that  which  we  find  in  the  society  of  the  good  and  pious 
men  is  approved  by  God.  Ride,  hunt  with  your  friends, 
amuse  yourself  in  their  company.  Solitude  and  melan¬ 
choly  are  poison.  They  are  deadly  to  all,  but,  above  all, 
to  the  young.” 

The  sombre  character  of  Luther’s  mind  cannot  be  cor¬ 
rectly  understood  by  those  who  are  wholly  ignorant  of  the 
legendary  traditions  of  his  native  land.  This  remark  is 
made  and  illustrated  by  M.  Henry  Heine,  with  that  cu¬ 
rious  knowledge  of  such  lore  as  none  but  a  denizen  of  Ger¬ 
many  could  acquire.  In  the  mines  of  Mansfeld,  at  Eise¬ 
nach  and  Erfurth,  the  visible  and  invisible  worlds  were  al¬ 
most  equally  populous;  and  the  training  of  youth  was  not 
merely  a  discipline  for  the  future  offices  of  life,  but  an  ini¬ 
tiation  into  mysteries  as  impressive,  though  not  quite  so 
sublime,  as  those  of  Eleusis.  The  unearthly  inhabitants 
of  every  land  are  near  akin  to  the  human  cultivators  of  the 
soil.  The  Killkropff  of  Saxony  differed  from  a  fairy  or  a 
hamadryad  as  a  Saxon  differs  from  a  Frenchman  or  a 
Greek;  the  thin  essences  by  which  these  spiritual  bodies 
are  sustained  being  distilled  according  to  their  various  na¬ 
tional  tastes,  from  the  dews  of  Hymettus,  the  light  wines 
of  Provence,  and  the  strong  beer  of  Germany.  At  the 
fire-side  around  which  Luther’s  family  drew,  in  his  child¬ 
hood,  there  gathered  a  race  of  imps  who  may  be  consi¬ 
dered  as  the  presiding  genii  of  the  turnspit  and  the  stable; 
witches  expert  in  the  right  use  of  the  broomstick,  but  in¬ 
capable  of  perverting  it  into  a  locomotive  engine;  homely  in 
gait,  coarse  in  feature,  sordid  in  their  habits,  with  canine 
appetites,  and  superhuman  powers,  and,  for  the  most  part, 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


113 


eaten  up  with  misanthropy.  When,  in  his  twentieth  year, 
Luther  for  the  first  time  opened  the  Bible,  and  read  there 
of  spiritual  agents,  the  inveterate  enemies  of  our  race,  these 
spectra  were  projected  on  a  mind  over  which  such  legends 
had  already  exercised  an  indestructible  influence.  Satan 
and  his  angels  crowded  upon  his  imagination,  neither  as 
shapeless  presences  casting  their  gloomy  shadows  on  the 
soul,  nor  as  mysterious  impersonations  of  her  foul  and 
cruel  desires,  nor  as  warriors  engaged  with  the  powers  of 
light  and  love,  and  holiness,  in  the  silent  motionless  war 
of  antagonist  energies.  Luther’s  devils  were  a  set  of  ath¬ 
letic,  cross-grained,  ill-conditioned  wretches,  with  vile 
shapes  and  fiendish  faces;  who,  like  the  monsters  of  Dame 
Ursula’s  kitchen,  gave  buffet  for  buffet,  hate  for  hate,  and 
joke  for  joke.  His  Satan  was  not  only  something  less  than 
archangel  ruined,  but  was  quite  below  the  society  of  that 
Prince  of  Darkness,  whom  Mad  Tom  in  Lear  declares  to 
be  a  gentleman.  Possessing  a  sensitive  rather  than  a 
creative  imagination,  Luther  transferred  the  visionary  lore, 
drawn  from  these  humble  sources,  to  the  machinery  of  the 
great  epic  of  revelation,  with  but  little  change  or  embellish- 
ment;  and  thus  contrived  to  reduce  to  the  level  of  very 
vulgar  prose  some  of  the  noblest  conceptions  of  inspired 
poetry. 

At  the  Castle  of  Wartburg,  his  Patmos,  where  he  dwelt 
the  willing  prisoner  of  his  friendly  sovereign,  the  Reformer 
chanced  to  have  a  plate  of  nuts  at  his  supper  table.  How 
many  of  them  he  swallowed,  there  is,  unfortunately,  no 
Boswell  to  tell;  vet,  perhaps,  not  a  few — for,  as  he  slept, 
the  nuts,  animated  as  it  would  seem  by  the  demon  of  the 
pantry,  executed  a  sort  of  waltz,  knocking  against  each 
other^  and  against  the  slumberer’s  bedstead;  when,  lo!  the 
staircase  became  possessed  by  a  hundred  barrels  rolling  up 
and  down,  under  the  guidance,  probably,  of  the  imp  of  the 
spigot.  Yet  all  approach  to  Luther’s  room  was  barred  by 
chains  and  by  an  iron  door--vain  intrenchments  against 
Satan!  He  arose,  solemnly  defied  the  fiend,  repeated  the 
eighth  Psalm,  and  resigned  himself  to  sleep.  Another  visit 
from  the  same  fearful  adversary  at  Nuremburg  led  to  the 
opposite  result.  The  Reformer  flew  from  his  bed  to  seek 
refuge  in  society.  Once  upon  a  time,  Carlostadt,  the  Sa- 
cramentarian,  being  in  the  pulpit,  saw  a  tall  man  enter  the 
church,  and  take  his  seat  by  one  of  the  burgesses  of  the 

10* 


I 


114 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


town.  The  intruder  then  retired,  betook  himself  to  the 
preacher’s  house,  and  exhibited  frightful  symptoms  of  a 
disposition  to  break  all  the  bones  of  his  child.  Thinking 
better  of  it,  however,  he  left  with  the  boy  a  message  for 
Carlostadt,  that  he  might  be  looked  for  again  in  three  days. 
It  is  needless  to  add  that,  on  the  third  day,  there  was  an 
end  of  the  poor  preacher,  and  of  his  attacks  on  Luther  and 
Consubstantiation.  In  the  cloisters  at  Wittemburg,  Luther 
himself  heard  that  peculiar  noise  which  attests  the  devil’s 
presence.  It  came  from  behind  a  stove,  resembling,  for 
all  the  world,  the  sound  of  throwing  a  fagot  on  the  fire. 
This  sound,  however,  is  not  invariable.  An  old  priest,  in 
the  attitude  of  prayer,  heard  Satan  behind  him,  grunting 
like  a  whole  herd  of  swine.  “Ah!  ha!  master  devil,”  said 
the  priest,  “you  have  your  deserts.  There  was  a  time 
when  you  were  a  beautiful  angel,  and  there  you  are  turned 
into  a  rascally  hog.”  The  priest’s  devotions  proceeded 
without  further  disturbance;  “for,”  observed  Luther,  “there 
is  nothing  the  devil  can  bear  so  little  as  contempt.”  He 
once  saw  and  even  touched  a  Killkropff  or  supposititious 
child.  This  was  at  Dessau.  The  deviling, — for  it  had  no 
other  parent  than  Satan  himself, — was  about  twelve  years 
old,  and  looked  exactly  like  any  other  boy.  But  the  un¬ 
lucky  brat  could  do  nothing  but  eat.  He  consumed  as 
much  food  as  four  ploughmen.  When  things  went  ill  in 
the  house,  his  laugh  was  to  he  heard  all  over  it.  If  mat¬ 
ters  went  smoothly,  there  was  no  peace  for  his  screaming. 
Luther  sportively  asserts  that  he  recommended  the  elector 
to  have  this  scapegrace  thrown  into  the  Moldau,  as  it  was 
a  mere  lump  of  flesh  without  a  soul.  His  visions  some¬ 
times  assumed  a  deeper  significance,  if  not  a  loftier  aspect. 
In  the  year  1496,  a  frightful  monster  was  discovered  in  the 
Tiber.  It  had  the  head  of  an  ass,  an  emblem  of  the  Pope; 
for  the  Church  being  a  spiritual  body  incapable  of  a  bead, 
the  Pope,  who  had  audaciously  assumed  that  character, 
was  fitly  represented  under  this  asinine  figure.  The  right 
hand  resembled  an  elephant’s  foot,  typifying  the  Papal 
tyranny  over  the  weak  and  timid.  The  right  foot  was  like 
an  ox’s  hoof,  shadowing  forth  the  spiritual  oppression  ex¬ 
ercised  by  doctors,  confessors,  nuns,  monks,  and  scholastic 
theologians;  while  the  left  foot  armed  with  griffin’s  claws, 
could  mean  nothing  else  than  the  various  ministers  of  the 
Pope’s  civil  authority.  How  far  Luther  believed  in  the 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


115 


existence  of  the  monster,  whose  mysterious  significations 
he  thus  interprets,  it -would  not  be  easy  to  decide.  Yet  it 
is  difficult  to  read  his  exposition,  and  to  suppose  it  a  mere 
pleasantry.  So  constantly  was  he  haunted  with  this  mid¬ 
night  crew  of  devils,  as  to  have  raised  a  serious  doubt  of 
his  sanity,  which  even  Mr.  Ilallam  does  not  entirely  dis¬ 
countenance.  Yet  the  hypothesis  is  surely  gratuitous.  In¬ 
tense  study  deranging  the  digestive  organs  of  a  man,  whose 
bodily  constitution  required  vigorous  exercise,  and  whose 
mind  had  been  earlv  stored  with  such  dreams  as  we  have 
mentioned,  sufficiently  explains  the  restless  importunity  of 
the  goblins  amongst  whom  he  lived.  It  is  easier  for  a  man 
to  be  in  advance  of  his  age  on  any  other  subject  than  this. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  nerves  of  Seneca  or  Pliny 
would  have  been  equal  to  a  solitary  evening  walk  by  the 
Lake  Avernus.  What  wonder,  then,  if  Marlin  Luther  was 
convinced  that  suicides  fall  not  by  their  own  hands,  but  by 
those  of  diabolical  emissaries,  who  really  adjust  the  cord  or 
point  the  knife — that  particular  spots,  as,  for  example,  the 
pool  near  the  summit  of  the  Mons  Pilatus,  were  desecrated 
to  Satan — that  the  wailings  of  his  victims  are  to  be  heard 
in  the  bowlings  of  the  night  wind — or  that  the  throwing  a 
stone  into  a  pond  in  his  own  neighbourhood,  immediately 
provoked  Such  struggles  of  the  evil  spirit  imprisoned  below 
the  water,  as  shook  the  neighbouring  country  like  an  earth¬ 
quake? 

The  mental  phantasmagoria  of  so  illustrious  a  man  are 
an  exhibition  to  which  no  one  who  reveres  his  name  would 
needlessly  direct  an  unfriendly,  or  an  idle  gaze.  But  the 
infirmities  of  our  nature  often  afford  the  best  measure  of 
its  strength.  To  estimate  the  strength  by  which  tempta¬ 
tion  is  overcome,  you  must  ascertain  the  force  of  the  pro¬ 
pensities  to  w’hicli  it  is  addressed.  Amongst  the  elements 
of  Luther’s  character  was  an  awe  verging  towards  idolatry, 
for  all  things,  whether  in  the  works  of  God  or  in  the  insti¬ 
tutions  of  man,  which  can  be  regarded  as  depositories  of 
the  Divine  power,  or  as  delegates  of  the  Divine  authority. 
From  pantheism,  the  disease  of  imaginations  at  once  devout 
and  unhallowed,  he  was  preserved  in  youth  by  his  respect 
for  the  doctrines  of  the  church;  and,  in  later  life,  by  his 
absolute  surrender  of  his  own  judgment  to  the  text  of  the 
sacred  canon.  But  as  far  as  a  pantheistic  habit  of  thought 
and  feeling  can  consist  with  the  most  unqualified  belief  in 


116 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


the  uncommunicable  Unity  of  the  Divine  nature,  such 
thoughts  and  feelings  were  habitual  to  him.  The  same 
spirit  which  solemnly  acknowledged  the  existence,  whilst 
it  abhorred  the  use,  of  the  high  faculties  which,  according 
to  the  popular  faith,  the  foul  fiends  of  earth,  and  air,  and 
water,  at  once  enjoy  and  pervert,  contemplated  with  almost 
prostrate  reverence  the  majesty  and  the  hereditary  glories 
of  Rome;  and  the  apostolical  succession  of  her  pontiff,  with 
kings  and  emperors  for  his  tributaries,  the  Catholic  hierar¬ 
chy  as  his  vicegerents,  and  the  human  mind  his  universal 
empire.  To  brave  the  vengeance  of  such  a  dynasty,  wield¬ 
ing  the  mysterious  keys  which  close  the  gates  of  hell  and 
open  the  portals  of  heaven,  long  appeared  to  Luther  an  im¬ 
pious  audacity,  of  which  nothing  less  than  wo,  eternal  and 
unutterable,  would  be  the  sure  and  appropriate  penalty. 
For  a  man  of  his  temperament  to  hush  these  superstitious 
terrors,  and  to  abjure  the  golden  idol  to  which  the  adoring 
eyes  of  all  nations,  kindred,  and  languages  were  directed, 
was  a  self-conquest,  such  as  none  but  the  most  heroic  minds 
can  achieve;  and  to  which  even  they  are  unequal,  unless 
sustained  by  an  invisible  but  omnipotent  arm.  For  no 
error  can  be  more  extravagant  that  that  which  would  re¬ 
duce  Martin  Luther  to  the  rank  of  a  coarse  spiritual  dema¬ 
gogue.  The  deep  self-distrust  which,  for  ten  ’successive 
years,  postponed  his  irreconcilable  war  with  Rome,  clung 
to  him  to  the  last;  nor  was  he  ever  unconscious  of  the  daz¬ 
zling  splendour  of  the  pageantry  which  his  own  hand  had 
contributed  so  largely  to  overthrow.  There  is  no  alloy  of 
affectation  in  the  following  avowal,  taken  from  one  of  his 
letters  to  Erasmus: — 

“  You  must,  indeed,  feel  yourself  in  some  measure  awed 
in  the  presence  of  a  succession  of  learned  men,  and  by  the 
consent  of  so  many  ages,  during  which  flourished  scholars 
so  conversant  in  sacred  literature,  and  martyrs  illustrious 
by  so  many  miracles.  To  all  this  must  be  added  the  more 
modern  theologians,  universities,  bishops,  and  popes.  On 
their  side  are  arrayed  learning,  genius,  numbers,  dignity, 
station,  power,  sanctity,  miracles,  and  what  not.  On  mine, 
Wycliff  and  Laurentius  Valla,  and  though  you  forget  to  men¬ 
tion  him,  Augustine  also.  Then  comes  Luther,  a  mean  man, 
born  but  yesterday,  supported  only  by  a  few  friends,  who 
have  neither  learning,  nor  genius,  nor  greatness,  nor  sanctity, 
nor  miracles.  Put  them  altogether,  and  they  have  not  wit 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


117 


enough  to  cure  a  spavined  horse.  What  are  they?  What 
the  wolf  said  of  the  nightingale — a  voice,  and  nothing  else. 
I  confess  it  is  with  reason  you  pause  in  such  a  presence  as 
this.  For  ten  years  together  I  hesitated  myself.  Could  I 
believe  that  this  Troy,  which  had  triumphed  over  so  many 
assaults  would  fall  at  last?  I  call  God  to  witness,  that  I 
should  have  persisted  in  my  fears,  and  should  have  hesi¬ 
tated  until  now,  if  truth  had  not  compelled  me  to  speak. 
You  may  well  believe  that  my  heart  is  not  rock;  and.  if 
it  were,  yet  so  many  are  the  waves  and  storms  which  have 
beaten  upon  it,  that  it  must  have  yielded  when  the  whole 
weight  of  this  authority  came  thundering  on  my  head,  like 
a  deluge  ready  to  overwhelm  me.” 

The  same  feelings  were  expressed  at  a  later  time  in  the 
following  words: — 

“  I  daily  perceive  how  difficult  it  is  to  overcome  long 
cherished  scruples.  Oh,  what  pain  it  has  cost  me,  though 
the  Scripture  is  on  my  side,  to  defend  myself  to  my  own 
heart  for  having  dared  singly  to  resist  the  Pope,  and  to 
denounce  him  as  Antichrist!  What  have  been  the  afflic¬ 
tions  of  my  bosom !  How  often,  in  the  bitterness  of  my 
soul,  have  I  pressed  myself  with  the  Papist’s  argument,- — 
Art  thou  alone  wise?  are  all  others  in  error?  have  they  been 
mistaken  for  so  long  a  time?  WThat  if  you  are  yourself 
mistaken,  and  are  dragging  with  you  so  many  souls  into 
eternal  condemnation?  Thus  did  I  reason  with  myself, 
till  Jesus  Christ,  by  his  own  infallible  word,  tranquillized 
my  heart,  and  sustained  it  against  this  argument,  as  a  reef 
of  rocks  thrown  up  against  the  waves  laughs  at  all  their 
fury. 

lie  who  thus  acknowledged  the  influence,  while  he  defied 
the  despotism  of  human  authority,  was  self-annihilated  in  the 
presence  of  his  Maker.  “  I  have  learned,”  he  says,  “  from 
the  Holy  Scriptures  that  it  is  a  perilous  and  a  fearful  thing 
to  speak  in  the  House  of  God;  to  address  those  who  will 
appear  in  judgment  against  us,  when  at  the  last  day  we 
shall  be  found  in  his  presence;  when  the  gaze  of  the  angels 
shall  be  directed  to  us,  when  every  creature  shall  behold 
the  Divine  Word,  and  shall  listen  till  He  speaks.  Truly, 
when  I  think  of  this,  I  have  no  wish  but  to  be  silent,  and 
to  cancel  all  that  I  have  written.  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  be 
called  to  render  to  God  an  account  of  every  idle  word.” 
Philip  Melancthon  occasionally  endeavoured  by  affectionate 


118 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


applause,  to  sustain  and  encourage  the  mind  which  was 
thus  bowed  down  under  the  sense  of  unworthiness.  But  the 
praise,  even  of  the  chosen  friend  of  his  bosom,  found  no 
echo  there.  He  rejected  it,  kindly  indeed,  but  with  a  re¬ 
buke  so  earnest  and  passionate,  as  to  show  that  the  com¬ 
mendations  of  him  whom  he  loved  and  valued  most,  were 
unwelcome.  They  served  but  to  deepen  the  depressing 
consciousness  of  ill  desert,  inseparable  from  his  lofty  con¬ 
ceptions  of  the  duties  which  had  been  assigned  to  him.  In 
Luther,  as  in  other  men,  the  stern  and  heroic  virtues  de¬ 
manded  for  their  support  that  profound  lowliness  which 
might  at  first  appear  the  most  opposed  to  their  development. 
The  eye  which  often  turns  inward  with  self-complacency, 
or  habitually  looks  round  for  admiration,  is  never  long  or 
steadfastly  fixed  on  any  more  elevated  object.  It  is  permitted 
to  no  man  at  once  to  court  the  applauses  of  the  world,  and 
to  challenge  a  place  amongst  the  generous  and  devoted  be¬ 
nefactors  of  his  species.  The  enervating  spell  of  vanity, 
so  fatal  to  many  a  noble  intellect,  exercised  no  perceptible 
control  over  Martin  Luther.  Though  conscious  of  the  rare 
endowments  he  had  received  from  Providence  (of  which 
that  very  consciousness  was  not  the  least  important,)  the 
secret  of  his  strength  lay  in  the  heartfelt  persuasion,  that 
his  superiority  to  other  men  gave  him  no  title  to  their  com¬ 
mendations,  and  in  his  abiding  sense  of  the  little  value  of 
such  praises.  The  growth  of  his  social  affections  was  un¬ 
impeded  by  self-regarding  thoughts ;  and  he  could  endure 
the  frowns  and  even  the  coldness  of  those  whose  approving 
smiles  he  judged  himself  unworthy  to  receive,  and  did  not 
much  care  to  win.  His  was  not  that  feeble  benevolence 
which  leans  for  support,  or  depends  for  existence,  on  the 
sympathy  of  those  for  whom  it  labours.  Reproofs,  sharp, 
unsparing,  and  pitiless,  were  familiar  to  his  tongue,  and  to  his 
pen.  Such  a  censure  lie  had  directed  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Mentz,  which  Spalatin,  in  the  name  of  their  common 
friend  and  sovereign,  the  Elector  Frederic,  implored  him  to 
suppress.  “  No,”  replied  Luther,  “in  defence  of  the  fold 
of  Christ,  I  will  oppose  to  the  utmost  of  my  power  this 
ravening  wolf,  as  I  have  resisted  others.  I  send  you  my 
book,  which  was  ready  before  your  letter  reached  me.  It 
has  not  induced  me  to  alter  a  word.  The  question  is  de¬ 
cided,  I  cannot  heed  your  objections.”  They  were  such, 
however,  as  most  men  would  have  thought  reasonable 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


119 


enoughs  Here  are  some  of  the  words  of  which  neither 
friend  nor  sovereign  could  dissuade  the  publication.  “  Did 
you  imagine  that  Luther  was  dead?  Believe  it  not.  He 
lives  under  the  protection  of  that  God  who  has  already 
humbled  the  Pope,  and  is  ready  .to  begin  with  the  Arch¬ 
bishop  of  Mentz  a  game  for  which  few  are  prepared.”  To 
the  severe  admonition  which  followed,  the  princely  prelate 
answered  in  his  own  person,  in  terms  of  the  most  humble 
deference,  leaving  to  Capito,  his  minister*  the  ticklish  office 
of  remonstrating  against  the  rigour  with  which  the  lash  had 
been  applied.  But  neither  soothing  nor  menaces  could 
abate  Luther’s  confidence  in  his  cause,  and  in  himself, 
“  Christianity,”  he  replies,  “  is  open  and  honest.  It  sees 
things  as  they  are,  and  proclaims  them  as  they  are.  I  am 
for  tearing  off  every  mask,  for  managing  nothing,  for  ex¬ 
tenuating  nothing,  for  shutting  the  eyes  to  nothing,  that 
truth  may  be  transparent  and  unadulterated,  and  may  have 
a  free  course.  Think  you  that  Luther  is  a  man  who  is 
content  to  shut  his  eyes  if  you  can  but  lull  him  by  a  few 
cajoleries?”  “Expect  every  thing  from  my  affection;  but 
reverence,  nay  tremble  for  the  faith.”  George,  Duke  of 
Saxony,  the  near  kinsman  of  Frederic,  and  one  of  the  most 
determined  enemies  of  the  Reformation,  not  seldom  pro¬ 
voked  and  encountered  the  same  resolute  defiance.  “  Should 
God  call  me  to  Wittemburg,  I  would  go  there,  though  it 
should  rain  Duke  Georges  for  nine  days  together,  and  each 
new  Duke  should  be  nine  times  more  furious  than  this.” 
“  Though  exposed  daily  to  death  in  the  midst  of  my  ene¬ 
mies,  and  without  any  human  resource,  I  never  in  my  life 
despised  any  thing  so  heartily  as  these  stupid  threats  of 
Duke  George,  and  his  associates  in  folly.  I  write  in  the 
morning  fasting,  with  my  heart  filled  with  holy  confidence. 
Christ  lives  and  reigns,  and  I,  too,  shall  live  and  reign.” 

Here  is  a  more  comprehensive  denunciation  of  the  futility 
of  the  attempts  made  to  arrest  his  course. 

“  To  the  language  of  the  Fathers,  of  men,  of  angels,  and 
of  devils,  I  oppose  neither  antiquity  nor  numbers,  but  the 
single  word  of  the  Eternal  Majesty,  even  that  gospel  which 
they  are  themselves  compelled  to  acknowledge.  Here  is 
my  hold,  my  stand,  my  resting-place,  my  glory,  and  my 
triumph.  Hence  I  assault  Popes,  Thomists,  Henrycists, 
Sophists,  and  all  the  gates  of  hell.  I  little  heed  the  words 
of  men,  whatever  may  have  been  their  sanctity,  nor  am  I 


120 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


anxious  about  tradition  or  doubtful  customs.  The  Word  of 
God  is  above  all.  If  the  Divine  majesty  be  on  my  side, 
what  care  I  for  the  rest,  though  a  thousand  Augustines,  and 
a  thousand  Cyprians,  and  a  thousand  such  churches  as  those 
of  Henry,  should  rise  against  me?  *  God  can  neither  err  nor 
deceive.  Augustine,  Cyprian,  and  all  the  saints,  can  err, 
and  have  erred.” 

“  At  Leipsic,  at  Augsburg,  and  at  Worms,  my  spirit  was 
as  free  as  a  flower  of  the  field.”  “  He  whom  God  moves 
to  speak,  expresses  himself  openly  and  freely,  careless 
whether  he  is  alone,  or  has  others  on  his  side.  So  spake 
Jeremiah,  and  I  may  boast  of  having  done  the  same.  God 
has  not  for  the  last  thousand  years  bestowed  on  any  bishop 
such  great  gifts  as  on  me,  and  it  is  right  that  I  should  ex¬ 
tol  his  gifts.  Truly,  I  am  indignant  with  myself  that  I  do 
not  heartily  rejoice  and  give  thanks.  Now  and  then  I  raise 
a  faint  hymn  of  thanksgiving,  and  feebly  praise  Him.  Well! 
live  or  die,  Domini  swims.  You  may  take  the  word  either 
in  the  genitive  or  in  the  nominative  case.  Therefore,  Sir 
Doctor,  be  firm.” 

This  buoyant  spirit  sometimes  expressed  itself  in  a  more 
pithy  phrase.  When  he  first  wrote  against  Indulgences, 
Dr.  Jerome  Schurf  said  to  him,  “  What  are  you  about?  they 
won’t  allow  it.”  “  What  if  they  must  allow  it?”  was  the 
peremptory  answer. 

The  preceding  passages,  while  they  illustrate  his  inde¬ 
structible  confidence  in  himself  as  the  minister,  and  in  his 
cause  as  the  behest,  of  Heaven,  are  redolent  of  that  un¬ 
seemly  violence  and  asperity  which  are  attested  at  once  by 
the  regrets  of  his  friends,  and  the  reproaches  of  his  enemies, 
and  his  own  acknowledgments.  So  fierce,  indeed,  and 
contumelious  and  withering  is  his  invective,  as  to  suggest 
the  theory,  that,  in  her  successive  transmigrations,  the 
same  fiery  soul  which  in  one  age  breathed  the  “  Divine 
Philippics.”  and  in  another,  the  “  Letters  on  a  Regicide 
Peace,”  was  lodged  in  the  sixteenth  century  under  the 
cowl  of  an  Augustinian  monk;  retaining  her  indomitable 
energy  of  abuse,  though  condemned  to  a  temporary  divorce 
from  her  inspiring  genius.  Yet  what  she  lost  in  eloquence 
in  her  transit  from  the  Roman  to  the  Irishman,  this  up¬ 
braiding  spirit  more  than  retrieved  in  generous  and  philan¬ 
thropic  ardour,  while  she  dwelt  in  the  bosom  of  the  Saxon. 
Luther’s  rage,  for  it  is  nothing  less — his  scurrilities,  for  they 


LUTHER  AND  TIIE  REFORMATION. 


121 


are  no  better — are  at  least  the  genuine  language  of  passion, 
excited  by  a  deep  abhorrence  of  imposture,  tyranny,  and 
wrong.  Through  the  ebullitions  of  his  wrath  may  be  dis¬ 
covered  his  lofty  self-esteem,  but  not  a  single  movement 
of  puerile  vanity;  his  cordial  scorn  for  fools  and  their  folly, 
but  not  one  heartless  sarcasm;  his  burning  indignation 
against  oppressors,  whether  spiritual  or  secular,  unclouded 
by  so  much  as  a  passing  shade  of  malignity.  The  torrent 
of  emotion  is  headlong,  but  never  turbulent.  When  we  are 
least  able  to  sympathize  with  his  irascible  feelings,  it  is 
also  least  in  our  power  to  refuse  our  admiration  to  a  mind 
which,  when  thus  torn  up  to  its  lowest  depths,  discloses  no 
trace  of  envy,  selfishness,  or  revenge,  or  of  any  still  baser 
inmate.  II  is  mission  from  on  high  may  be  disputed,  but 
hardly  his  own  belief  in  it.  In  that  persuasion,  his  thoughts 
often  reverted  to  the  Prophet  of  Israel  mocking  the  idola¬ 
trous  priests  of  Baal,  and  menacing  their  still  more  guilty 
King;  and  if  the  mantle  of  Elijah  might  have  been  borne 
with  a  more  imposing  majesty,  it  could  not  have  fallen  on 
one  better  prepared  to  pour  contempt  on  the  proudest  ene¬ 
mies  of  truth,  or  to  brave  their  utmost  resentment. 

Is  it  paradoxical  to  ascribe  Luther’s  boisterous  invective 
to  his  inherent  reverence  for  all  those  persons  and  institu¬ 
tions,  in  favour  of  which  wisdom,  power,  and  rightful  do¬ 
minion,  are  involuntarily  presumed?  He  lived  under  the 
control  of  an  imagination  susceptible  though  not  creative — 
of  that  passive  mental  sense  to  which  it  belongs  to  embrace, 
rather  than  to  originate — to  fix  and  deepen  our  more  serious 
impressions,  rather  than  to  minister  to  the  understanding  in 
the  search  or  the  embellishment  of  truth.  This  propensity, 
the  basis  of  religion  itself  in  some,  of  loyalty  in  others, 
and  of  superstition  perhaps  in  all,  prepares  the  feeble  for 
a  willing  servitude;  and  furnishes  despotism  with  zealous 
instruments  in  men  of  stronger  nerves  and  stouter  hearts. 
It  steeled  Dominic  and  Loyola  for  their  relentless  tasks, 
and  might  have  raised  St.  Martin  of  Wittemburg  to  the 
honours  of  canonization;  if,  in  designing  him  for  his  ardu¬ 
ous  office,  Providence  had  not  controlled  the  undue  sensi¬ 
bility  of  Luther’s  mind,  by  imparting  to  him  a  brother’s 
love  for  all  the  humbler  members  of  the  family  of  man, 
and  a  filial  fear  of  God,  stronger  even  than  his  reverence 
for  the  powers  and  principalities  of  this  sublunary  world. 
Between  his  religious  affections  and  his  homage  for  the 
11 


122 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


idols  of  his  imagination,  he  was  agitated  by  a  ceaseless 
conflict.  The  nice  adjustment  of  such  a  balance  ill  suited 
his  impatient  and  irritable  temper;  and  he  assaulted  the 
objects  of  his  early  respect  with  an  impetuosity  which  be¬ 
trays  his  secret  dread  of  those  formidable  antagonists  (so 
he  esteemed  them)  of  God  and  of  mankind.  He  could  not 
trust  himself  to  be  moderate.  The  restraints  of  education, 
habit,  and  natural  disposition,  could  be  overborne. only  by 
the  excitement  which  he  courted  and  indulged.  His  long- 
cherished  veneration  for  those  who  tread  upon  the  high 
places  of  the  earth,  lent  to  his  warfare  with  them  all  the 
energy  of  self-denial,  quickened  by  the  anxiety  of  self-dis¬ 
trust!  He  scourged  his  lordly  adversaries,  in  the  spirit  of 
a  flagellant  taming  his  own  rebellious  flesh.  His  youthful 
devotion  for  “  the  solemn  plausibilities  of  life,”  like  all 
other  affections  obstinately  repelled  and  mortified,  reversed 
its  original  tendency,  and  gave  redoubled  fervour  to  the 
zeal  with  which  he  denounced  their  vanity  and  resisted 
their  usurpation.  If  these  indignant  contumelies  offended 
the  gentle,  the  learned,  and  the  wise,  they  sustained  the 
courage  and  won  the  confidence  of  the  multitude.  The 
voice  which  commands  in  a  tempest  must  battle  rvith  the 
roar  of  the  elements.  In  his  own  apprehension  at  least, 
Luther’s  soul  was  among  lions — the  Princes  of  Germany, 
and  their  ministers;  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  Edward  Lee, 
his  chaplain;  the  Sacramentarians  and  Anabaptists;  the 
Universities  of  Cologne  and  Louvain;  Charles  and  Leo; 
Adrian  and  Clement;  Papists,  Jurists,  and  Aristotelians; 
and,  above  all,  the  Devils  whom  his  creed  assigned  to  each 
of  these  formidable  opponents  as  so  many  inspiring  or 
ministering  spirits.  However  fierce  and  indefensible  may 
be  his  occasional  style,  history  presents  no  more  sublime 
picture  than  that  of  the  humble  monk  triumphing  over  such 
adversaries,  in  the  invincible  power  of  a  faith  before  which 
the  present  and  the  visible  disappeared,  to  make  way  for 
things  unseen,  eternal,  and  remote.  One  brave  spirit  en¬ 
countered  and  subdued  a  hostile  world.  An  intellect  of  no 
gigantic  proportions,  seconded  by  learning  of  no  marvel¬ 
lous  compass,  and  gifted  ivith  no  rare  or  exquisite  abilities, 
but  invincible  in  decision  and  constancy  of  purpose,  ad¬ 
vanced  to  the  accomplishment  of  one  great  design,  with  a 
continually  increasing  momentum,  before  which  all  feebler 
minds  retired,  and  all  opposition  wras  dissipated.  The 


LUTIIER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


123 


majesty  of  the  contest,  and  the  splendour  of  the  results, 
may,  perhaps,  even  in  our  fastidious  and  delicate  age,  be 
received  as  an  apology  for  such  reproofs  as  the  following 
to  the  Royal  “Defender  of  the  Faith.” 

“There  is  much  royal  ignorance  in  this  volume,  but 
there  is  also  much  virulence  and  falsehood,  which  belongs 
to  Lee  the  editor.  In  the  cause  of  Christ  I  have  trampled 
under  foot  the  idol  of  the  Roman  abomination  which  had 
usurped  the  place  of  God  and  the  dominion  of  sovereigns 
and  of  the  world.  Who,  then,  is  this  Henry,  this  Tho- 
mist,  this  disciple  of  the  monster,  that  I  should  dread  his 
blasphemies  and  his  fury?  Truly  he  is  the  Defender  of 
the  Church!  Y  es,  of  that  Church  of  his  which  he  thus 
extols — of  that  prostitute  who  is  clothed  in  purple,  drunk 
with  her  debaucheries — of  that  mother  of  fornications. 
Christ  is  my  leader.  I  will  strike  with  the  same  blow  that 
Church  and  the  defender  with  whom  she  has  formed  this 
strict  union.  They  have  challenged  me  to  war.  Well, 
they  shall  have  war.  They  have  scorned  the  peace  I  of¬ 
fered  them.  Well,  they  shall  have  no  more  peace.  It 
shall  be  seen  which  will  first  be  weary — the  Pope  or  Lu¬ 
ther.” — “The  world  is  gone  mad.  There  are  the  Hun- 
garians,  assuming  the  character  of  the  defenders  of  God 
himself.  They  pray  in  their  litanies,  ut  nos  defensores 
tuos  exciudire  digneris — why  do  not  some  of  our  princes 
take  on  them  the  protection  of  Jesus  Christ,  others  that  of 
the  Holy  Spirit?  Then,  indeed,  the  Divine  Trinity  would 
be  well  guarded.” 

The  Briefs  of  Pope  Adrian  are  thus  disposed  of: — “It 
is  mortifying  to  be  obliged  to  give  such  good  German  in 
answer  to  this  wretched  Latin.  But  it  is  the  pleasure  of 
God  to  confound  Antichrist  in  every  thing — to  leave  him 
neither  literature  nor  language.  They  say  that  he  has 
gone  mad  and  fallen  into  dotage.  It  is  a  shame  to  address 
us  Germans  in  such  Latin  as  this,  and  to  send  to  sensible 
people  such  a  clumsy  and  absurd  interpretation  of  Scrip¬ 
ture.” 

The  Bulls  of  Pope  Clement  fare  no  better.  “The  Pope 
tells  us  in  his  answer  that  he  is  willing  to  throw  open  the 
golden  doors.  It  is  long  since  we  opened  all  doors  in 
Germany.  But  these  Italian  Scaramouches  have  never 
restored  a  farthing  of  the  gain  they  have  made  by  their  in¬ 
dulgences,  dispensations,  and  other  diabolical  inventions. 


124 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


Good  Pope  Clement,  all  your  clemency  and  gentleness 
won’t  pass  here.  We’ll  buy  no  more  indulgences.  Golden 
doors  and  bulls,  get  ye  home  again.  Look  to  the  Italians 
for  payment.  They  who  know  ye  will  buy  ye  no  more. 
Thanks  be  to  God,  we  know  that  they  who  possess  and 
believe  the  gospel,  enjoy  an  uninterrupted  jubilee.  Ex¬ 
cellent  Pope,  what  care  we  for  your  bulls?  You  may 
save  your  seals  and  your  parchment.  They  are  in  bad 
odour  now-a-days.” — -“Let  them  accuse  me  of  too  much 
violence.  I  care  not.  Hereafter  be  it  my  glory  that  men 
shall  tell  how  I  inveighed  and  raged  against  the  Papists. 
For  the  last  ten  years  have  I  been  humbling  myself,  and 
addressing  them  in  none  but  respectful  language.  What 
has  been  the  consequence  of  all  this  submission?  To  make 
bad  worse.  These  people  are  but  the  more  furious.  Well, 
since  they  are  incorrigible,  as  it  is  vain  to  hope  to  shake 
their  infernal  purposes  by  kindness,  I  will  break  them,  I 
will  pursue  them,”  &c. — “Such  is  my  contempt  for  these 
Satans,  that  were  I  not  confined  here,  I  would  go  straight 
to  Rome,  in  spite  of  the  Devil  and  all  these  furies.” 
“But,”  he  continues,  in  a  more  playful  mood,  “I  must 
have  patience  with  the  Pope,  with  my  boarders,  my  ser¬ 
vants,  with  Catherine  de  Bord,  and  with  every  body  else. 
In  short,  I  live  a  life  of  patience.” 

At  the  risk  of  unduly  multiplying  these  quotations,  we 
must  add  another,  which  has  been  quoted  triumphantly  by 
his  enemies.  It  is  his  answer  to  the  charge  of  mis-trans- 
lating  the  Bible.  “The  ears  of  the  Papists  are  too  long 
with  their  hi!  ha!— -they  are  unable  to  criticise  a  translation 
from  Latin  into  German.  Tell  them  that  Dr.  Martin  Lu¬ 
ther  chooses  that  it  shall  be  so,  and  that  a  Papist  and  a  jack¬ 
ass  are  the  same.” 

We  should  reprint  no  small  portion  of  Luther’s  works 
before  we  exhausted  the  examples  which  might  be  drawn 
lrom  them,  of  the  uproar  with  which  he  assailed  his  an¬ 
tagonists.  To  the  reproaches  which  this  violence  drew 
on  him,  he  rarely  condescended  to  reply.  But  to  his  best 
and  most  powerful  friend,  the  Elector  Frederic,  he  makes 
a  defence,  in  which  there  is  some  truth  and  more  eloquence. 
“They  say  that  these  books  of  mine  are  too  keen  and 
cutting.  They  are  right:  I  never  meant  them  to  be  soft 
and  gentle.  My  only  regret  is,  that  they  cut  no  deeper. 
Think  of  the  violence  of  my  enemies,  and  you  must  con- 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


125 


less  that  I  have  been  forbearing.” — “All  the  world  exclaims 
against  me,  vociferating  the  most  hateful  calumnies;  and  if 
in  my  turn,  I,  poor  man,  raise  my  voice,  then  nobody  has 
been  vehement  but  Luther.  In  fine,  whatever  I  do  or  say 
must  be  wrong,  even  should  I  raise  the  dead.  Whatever 
they  do  must  be  right,  even  should  they  deluge  Germany 
with  tears  and  blood,”  In  his  more  familiar  discourse,  he 
gave  another,  and  perhaps  a  more  accurate  account  of  the 
real  motives  of  his  impetuosity.  He  purposely  fanned  the 
flame  of  an  indignation  which  he  thought  virtuous,  because 
the  origin  of  it  was  so.  “I  never,”  he  said,  “write  or 
speak  so  well  as  when  I  am  in  a  passion.”  He  found 
anger  an  effectual,  and  at  last  a  necessary  stimulant,  and 
indulged  in  a  liberal  or  rather  in  an  intemperate  use  of  it. 

The  tempestuous  phase  of. Luther’s  mind  was  not,  how¬ 
ever,  permanent.  The  wane  of  it  may  be  traced  in  his 
later  writings;  and  the  cause  of  it  may  be  readily  assigned. 
The  liberator  of  the  human  mind  was  soon  to  discover 
that  the  powers  he  had  set  free  were  not  subject  to  his 
control.  The  Iconoclasts,  Anabaptists,  and  other  innova¬ 
tors,  however  welcome  at  first  as  useful,  though  irregular 
partisans,  brought  an  early  discredit  on  the  victory  to 
which  they  had  contributed.  The  Reformer’s  suspicion 
of  these  doubtful  allies  was  first  awakened  by  the  facility 
with  which  they  urged  their  conquests  over  the  established 
opinions  of  the  Christian  world  beyond  the  limits  at  which 
he  had  himself  paused.  He  distrusted  their  exemption 
from  the  pangs  and  throes  with  which  the  birth  of  his  own 
doctrines  had  been  accompanied.  He  perceived  in  them 
none  of  the  caution,  self-distrust,  and  humility,  which  he 
wisely  judged  inseparable  from  the  honest  pursuit  of  truth. 
Their  claims  to  an  immediate  intercourse  with  heaven  ap¬ 
peared  to  him  an  impious  pretension;  for  he  judged  that  it 
is  only  as  attempered  through  many  a  gross  intervening 
medium,  that  Divine  light  can  be  received  into  the  human 
understanding.  Carlostadt,  one  of  the  professors  of  Wit- 
temburg,  was  the  leader  of  the  Illuminati  at  that  university. 
The  influence  of  Luther  procured  his  expulsion  to  Jena, 
where  he  established  a  printing  press.  But  the  maxims  of 
toleration  are  not  taught  in  the  school  of  successful  pole¬ 
mics  ;  and  the  secular  arm  was  invoked  to  silence  an  ap¬ 
peal  to  the  world  at  large  against  a  new  papal  authority. 

The  debate  from  which  Luther  thus  excluded  others  he 

II* 


12G 


STEPHENS  MISCELLANIES. 


could  not  deny  to  himself;  for  he  shrunk  from  no  inquiry 
and  dreaded  no  man’s  prowess.  A  controversial  passage 
at  arms  accordingly  took  place  between  the  Reformer  and 
his  refractory  pupil.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  they  sepa¬ 
rated,  each  more  firmly  convinced  of  the  errors  of  his  op¬ 
ponent.  The  taunt  of  fearing  an  open  encounter  with 
truth,  Luther  repelled  with  indignation  and  spirit.  He 
invited  Carlostadt  to  publish  freely  whatever  he  thought 
fit,  and  the  challenge  being  accepted,  placed  in  his  hands  a 
florin,  as  a  kind  of  wager  of  battle.  It  was  received  with 
equal  frankness.  The  combatants  grasped  each  other’s 
hands,  drank  mutual  pledges  in  a  solemn  cup,  and  parted 
to  engage  in  hostilities  more  serious  than  such  greetings 
might  have  seemed  to  augur.  Luther  had  the  spirit  of  a 
martyr,  and  was  not  quite  exempt  from  that  of  a  persecu¬ 
tor.  Driven  from  one  city  to  another,  Carlostadt  at  last 
found  refuge  at  Basle;  and  thence  assailed  his  adversary  with 
a  rapid  succession  of  pamphlets,  and  with  such  pleasant 
appellatives  as  “  twofold  papist,”  “  ally  of  Antichrist,”  and 
so  forth.  They  were  answered  with  equal  fertility,  and 
with  no  greater  moderation.  “  The  devil,”  says  Luther, 
“held  his  tongue  till  I  won  him  over  with  a  florin.  It  was 
money  well  laid  out.  I  do  not  regret  it.”  He  now  advo¬ 
cated  the  cause  of  social  order,  and  exposed  the  dangers  of 
ignorant  innovators,  assailing  these  new  enemies  with  his 
old  weapons.  “  It  will  never  do  to  jest  with  Mr.  All  the 
World  ( Herr  Omnes.)  To  keep  that  formidable  person 
quiet,  God  has  established  lawful  authority.  It  is  his  plea¬ 
sure  that  there  should  be  order  amongst  us  here.”  “  They 
cry  out,  the  Bible!  the  Bible! — Bibel !  Bubel  !  Babel!” 
From  that  sacred  source  many  arguments  had  been  drawn 
to  prove  that  all  good  Christians  were  bound,  in  imitation 
of  the  great  Jewish  lawgiver,  to  overthrow  and  deface  the 
statues  with  which  the  Papists  had  embellished  the  sacred 
edifices.  Luther  strenuously  resisted  both  the  opinion  and 
the  practice;  maintaining  that  the  Scriptures  nowhere  pro¬ 
hibit  the  use  of  images,  except  such  as  were  designed  as  a 
representation  or  symbol  of  Deity.  But  to  the  war  with 
objects  designed  (however  injudiciously)  to  aid  the  imagi¬ 
nation,  and  to  enliven  the  affections,  Carlostadt  and  his 
partisans  united  that  mysticism  which  teaches  that  the 
mind,  thus  deprived  of  all  external  and  sensible  supports, 
should  raise  itself  to  a  height  of  spiritual  contemplation 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


127 


and  repose,  where,  all  other  objects  being  banished,  and 
all  other  sounds  unheard,  and  all  other  thoughts  expelled, 
the  Divine  Being  will  directly  manifest  himself,  and  dis¬ 
close  his  will  by  a  voice  silent  and  inarticulate,  and  yet 
distinctly  intelligible.  Luther  handles  this  sublime  non¬ 
sense  as  it  well  deserved.  “The  devil,”  he  says  (for  this 
is  his  universal  solvent,)  “  opens  his  large  mouth,  and  roars 
out,  Spirit!  spirit!  spirit!  destroying  the  while  all  roads, 
bridges,  scaling-ladders,  and  paths,  by  which  spirit  can 
enter;  namely,  the  visible  order  established  by  God  in  holy 
baptism,  in  outward  forms,  and  in  his  own  word.  They 
would  have  you  mount  the  clouds  and  ride  the  winds, 
telling  you  neither  how,  nor  when,  nor  where,  nor  which. 
All  this  they  leave  you  to  discover  for  yourself.” 

Carlostadt  was  an  image-breaker  and  a  mystic,  but  he 
was  something  more.  He  had  adopted  the  opinion  of 
Zuingle  and  CEcolampadius  on  the  Holy  Communion, — re¬ 
ceiving  as  an  emblem,  and  as  nothing  else,  the  sacred  ele¬ 
ments  in  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  after  the  words 
of  consecration,  recognises  the  very  body  and  blood  of  the 
Divine  Redeemer.  He  was,  therefore,  supported  by  the 
whole  body  of  Swiss  reformers.  Luther,  “  chained  down,” 
as  he  expresses  it,  “  by  the  sacred  text,”  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  real  presence,  had  ardently  desired  to  be  enfranchised 
from  this  opinion.  “  As  often  as  he  felt  within  himself 
the  strivings  of  the  old  Adam,  he  was  but  too  violently 
drawn  to  adopt  the  Swiss  interpretation.”  “  But  if  we 
take  counsel  with  reason  we  shall  no  longer  believe  any 
mystery.”  He  had,  however,  consulted  this  dangerous 
guide  too  long,  thus  easily  to  shake  off  her  company. 
The  text  taught  him  one  real  presence,  his  reason  assured 
him  of  another;  and  so  he  required  his  disciples  to  admit 
and  believe  both.  They  obeyed,  though  at  the  expense  of 
a  schism  among  the  reformers,  of  which  it  is  difficult  to 
say  whether  it  occasioned  more  distress  to  themselves,  or 
more  exultation  to  their  common  enemies. 

This  is  the  first  and  greatest  of  those  “Variations”  of 
which  the  history  has  been  written  with  such  inimitable 
eloquence.  Nothing  short  of  the  most  obtuse  prejudice 
could  deny  to  Bossuet  the  praise  of  having  brought  to  reli¬ 
gious  controversy  every  quality  which  can  render  it  either 
formidable  or  attractive;  a  style  of  such  transparent  perspi¬ 
cuity  as  would  impart  delight  to  the  study  of  the  year-books, 


128 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


if  they  could  be  re-written  in  it;  a  sagacity  which  nothing 
escapes;  and  a  fervour  of  thought  and  feeling  so  intense,  as 
to  breathe  and  burn  not  onlv  without  the  use  of  vehement 
or  opprobrious  words,  but  through  a  diction  invariably  calm 
and  simple;  and  a  mass  of  learning  so  vast  and  so  perfectly 
digested  as  to  be  visible  every  where  without  producing 
the  slightest  incumbrance  or  embarrassment.  To  quote 
from  Mr.  Hallam’s  History  of  the  Middle  Ages: — “  No¬ 
thing,  perhaps,  in  polemical  eloquence  is  so  splendid  as 
the  chapter  on  Luther’s  theological  tenets.  The  Eagle  of 
Meaux  is  there  truly  seen,  lordly  of  form,  fierce  of  eyes, 
terrible  in  his  beak  and  claws” — a  graphic  and  not  un¬ 
merited  tribute  to  the  prowess  of  this  formidable  adversary. 
But  the  triumph  which  it  appears  to  concede  to  him  may 
not  be  so  readily  acknowledged. 

The  argument  of  the  “  Variations  ”  rests  on  the  postulate, 
that  a  religion  of  divine  origin  must  have  provided  some 
resource  for  excluding  uncertainty  on  every  debateable 
point  of  belief  or  practice.  But  it  must  be  vain  to  search 
for  this  steadfast  light  amongst  those  who  were  at  variance 
on  so  many  vital  questions.  The  required  Ductor  Dubi- 
tantium  could,  therefore,  be  found  only  in  the  venerable 
form  of  the  Catholic  Church,  whose  oracles,  every  where 
accessible  and  never  silent,  had,  from  age  to  age,  delivered 
to  the  faithful  the  same  invariable  truths  in  one  continuous 
strain  of  perfect  and  unbroken  harmony. 

Much  as  the  real  contrast  has  been  exaggerated  by  the 
most  subtle  disputant  of  modern  times,  it  would  be  futile 
to  deny,  or  to  extenuate  the  glaring  inconsistencies  of  the 
reformers  with  each  other,  and  with  themselves.  Protes¬ 
tantism  may  well  endure  an  avowal  which  leaves  her  foun¬ 
dations  unimpaired.  Bossuet  has  disproved  the  existence 
of  a  miracle  which  no  man  alleges.  He  has  incontrover- 
tibly  established  that  the  laws  of  nature  were  not  suspended 
in  favour  of  Luther  and  his  associates.  He  has  shown, 
with  inimitable  address  and  eloquence,  that,  within  the  pre¬ 
cincts  of  moral  science,  human  reason  must  toil  in  vain  for 
demonstrative  certainties;  and  that,  in  such  studies,  they 
who  would  adopt  the  same  general  results,  and  co-operate 
for  one  common  end,  must  be  content  to  rest  very  far  short 
of  an  absolute  identity  of  opinion.  But  there  is  a  deep  and 
impassable  gulf  between  these  premises  and  the  inference 
deduced  from  them.  The  stupendous  miracle  of  a  tradi- 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


129 


tional  unanimity  for  fifteen  hundred  years  amongst  the 
members  of  the  Christian  Church,  at  once  unattested  by 
any  authentic  evidence,  and  refuted  by  irresistible  proofs, 
is  opposed  as  much  to  the  whole  •  economy  of  the  moral 
government  of  the  world,  as  it  is  to  human  experience.  It 
was,  indeed,  easy  to  silence  dissent  by  terror;  to  disguise 
real  differences  beneath  conventional  symbols;  to  divert  the 
attention  of  the  incurious  by  a  gorgeous  pageantry;  and  to 
disarm  the  inquisitive  at  one  time  by  golden  preferments, 
and  at  another  by  specious  compromises:  and  it  was  easy 
to  allege  this  timid,  or  blind,  or  selfish  acquiescence  in  spi¬ 
ritual  despotism,  as  a  general  consent  to  the  authority,  and 
as  a  spontaneous  adoption  of  the  tenets  of  the  dominant 
priesthood.  But  so  soon  as  men  really  began  to  think,  it 
was  impossible  that  they  should  think  alike.  When  suf¬ 
frages  were  demanded,  and  not  acclamations,  there  was  at 
once  an  end  of  unanimity.  With  mental  freedom  came 
doubt,  and  debate,  and  sharp  dissension.  The  indispensa¬ 
ble  conditions  of  human  improvement  were  now  to  be  ful¬ 
filled.  It  was  discovered  that  religious  knowledge,  like  all 
other  knowledge,  and  religious  agreement,  like  all  other 
agreement,  were  blessings  which,  like  all  other  blessings, 
must  be  purchased  at  a  price.  Luther  dispelled  the  illusion 
that  man’s  noblest  science  may  be  attained,  his  first  in¬ 
terests  secured,  and  his  most  sacred  duties  discharged,  ex¬ 
cept  in  the  strenuous  exercise  of  the  best  faculties  of  his 
nature.  He  was  early  taught  that  they  who  submit  them¬ 
selves  to  this  divine  ordinance  are  cut  off  from  the  intellec¬ 
tual  repose  which  rewards  a  prostrate  submission  to  human 
authority;  that  they  must  conduct  the  search  of  truth  through 
many  a  bitter  disappointment,  and  many  a  humiliating  re¬ 
traction,  and  many  a  weary  strife;  and  that  they  must  brace 
their  nerves  and  strain  their  mental  powers  to  the  task, 
with  sleepless  diligence, — attended  and  sustained  the  while 
by  singleness  of  purpose,  by  candour,  by  hope,  by  humility, 
and  by  devotion.  When  this  severe  lesson  had  been  learned, 
the  reformers  boldly,  nay,  passionately,  avowed  their  mu¬ 
tual  differences.  The  imperfect  vision,  and  unsteady  gait, 
of  eyes  long  excluded  from  the  light,  and  limbs  debarred 
from  exercise,  drew  on  them  the  taunts  and  contumelies  of 
those  whose  bondage  they  had  dared  to  reject.  But  the 
sarcasms  even  of  Erasmus,  the  eloquence  even  of  Bossuet, 
were  hurled  at  them  in  vain.  Centuries  rolled  on  their 


130 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


appointed  course  of  controversy,  of  prejudice,  of  persecu¬ 
tion,  and  of  long  suffering.  Nor  was  that  sharp  conflict 
endured  to  no  good  end.  Gradually  the  religion  of  the 
gospel  resumed  much  of  the  benignant  and  catholic  spirit 
of  the  primitive  ages.  The  rights  of  conscience  and  the 
principles  of  toleration,  were  acknowledged.  Some  vehe¬ 
ment  disputes  were  consigned  to  well-merited  neglect.  The 
Church  of  Rome  herself  silently  adopted  much  of  the  spirit, 
whilst  anathematizing  the  tenets,  of  the  Reformers;  and  if 
the  dominion  of  peace  and  charity  be  still  imperfect  and 
precarious,  yet  there  is  a  brighter  prospect  of  their  univer¬ 
sal  empire  than  has  ever  before  dawned  on  the  nations  of 
Christendom.  The  Eagle  of  Meaux,  had  he  been  reserved 
for  the  nineteenth  century,  would  have  laid  aside  “  the 
terrors  of  his  beak,  the  lightnings  of  his  eye,”  and  would 
have  winged  his  lordly  flight  to  regions  elevated  far  above 
those  over  which  it  is  his  glory  to  have  spread  war  and 
consternation. 

These,  however,  are  conclusions  which,  in  Luther’s  age, 
were  beyond  the  reach  of  human  foresight.  It  was  at  that 
time  supposed  that  all  men  might  at  once  freely  discuss, 
and  unanimously  interpret,  the  meaning  of  the  inspired  vo¬ 
lume.  The  trial  of  the  experiment  brought  to  light  many 
essential  variations,  but  still  more  in  which  the  verbal  ex¬ 
ceeded  the  real  difference;  and  such  was,  perhaps,  the  case 
with  the  Sacramenlarian  controversy.  The  objection  to 
Luther’s  doctrine  of  Consubstantiation,  was  not  that  it  was 
opposed  to  the  reason  of  man,  nor  even  that  it  was  contra¬ 
dicted  by  the  evidence  of  his  senses;  but  that  no  intelligible 
meaning  could  be  assigned  to  any  of  the  combinations  of 
words  in  which  it  was  expressed.  It  might  be  no  difficult 
task  to  be  persuaded  that  whatever  so  great  a  doctor  taught, 
on  so  high  a  point  of  theology,  must  be  a  truth; — just  as 
the  believers  in  George  Psalmanazer  may  have  been  firmly 
assured  of  the  verity  of  the  statements  he  addressed  to  them 
in  the  language  of  Formosa.  But  the  Lutheran  doctrine 
could  hardly  have  been  more  obscure,  if  delivered  in  the 
Formosan,  instead  of  the  Latin  or  the  German  tongue.  To 
ail  common  apprehension,  it  appeared  nothing  less  than 
the  simultaneous  affirmation  and  denial  of  the  very  same 
thing.  In  this  respect,  it  closely  resembled  the  kindred 
doctrine  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  Yet  who  would  dare  to 
avow  such  presumptuous  bigotry  as  to  impute  to  the  long 


LUTHER  AND  TIIE  REFORMATION. 


131 


unbroken  succession  of  powerful  and  astute  minds  which 
have  adorned  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Lutheran  Churches, 
the  extravagance  of  having  substituted  unmeaning  sounds 
for  a  definite  sense,  on  so  momentous  an  article  of  their  re¬ 
spective  creeds?  The  consequence  may  be  avoided  by  a 
much  more  rational  supposition.  It  is,  that  the  learned  of 
both  communions  used  the  words  in  which  that  article  is 
enounced,  in  a  sense  widely  remote  from  that  which  they 
usually  bear.  The  proof  of  this  hypothesis  would  be  more 
easy  than  attractive:  nor  would  it  be  a  difficult,  though  an 
equally  uninviting  office,  to  show  that  Zuingle  and  his  fol¬ 
lowers  indulged  themselves  in  a  corresponding  freedom  with 
human  language.  The  dispute,  however,  proceeded  too  ra¬ 
pidly  to  be  overtaken  or  arrested  by  definitions;  which,  had 
they  preceded,  instead  of  following  the  controversy,  might 
have  stifled  in  its  birth  many  a  goodly  folio. 

The  minds  of  men  are  rudely  called  away  from  these 
subtleties.  Throughout  the  west  of  Germany,  the  peasants 
rose  in  a  sudden  and  desperate  revolt  against  their  lords, 
under  the  guidance  of  Goetz  of  the  “Iron  Hand.”  If  nei¬ 
ther  animated  by  the  principles,  nor  guided  by  the  precepts, 
of  the  gospel,  the  insurgents  at  least  avowed  their  adhe¬ 
rence  to  the  party  then  called  Evangelical,  and  justified 
their  conduct  by  an  appeal  to  the  doctrines  of  the  reformers. 
Yet  this  fearful  disruption  of  the  bands  of  society  was  pro¬ 
voked  neither  by  speculative  opinions,  nor  by  imaginary 
wrongs.  The  grievances  of  the  people  were  galling,  pal¬ 
pable,  and  severe.  They  belonged  to  that  class  of  social 
evils  over  which  the  advancing  light  of  truth  and  knowledge 
must  always  triumph;  either  by  prompting  timely  conces¬ 
sions,  or  by  provoking  the  rebound  of  the  overstrained  pa¬ 
tience  of  mankind.  Domestic  slavery,  feudal  tenures,  op¬ 
pressive  taxation,  and  a  systematic  denial  of  justice  to  the 
poor,  occupied  the  first  place  in  their  catalogue  of  injuries: 
the  forest  laws  and  the  exaction  of  small  tithes  the  second. 
The  demand  of  the  right  to  choose  their  own  religious 
teachers,  may  not  improbably  have  been  added,  to  give  to 
their  cause  the  semblance  of  a  less  sublunary  character;  and 
rather  in  compliment  to  the  spirit  of  the  times,  than  from 
any  very  lively  desire  for  instructed,  who,  they  well  knew, 
would  discourage  and  rebuke  their  lawless  violence.  Such 
a  monitor  was  Luther,  He  was  at  once  too  conspicuous 
and  too  ardent  to  remain  a  passive  spectator  of  these  tu- 


132  Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

mults.  The  nobles  arraigned  him  as  the  author  cf  their 
calamities.  The  people  invoked  him  as  an  arbiter  in  the 
dispute.  He  answered  their  appeal  with  more  than  papal 
dignity.  A  poor  untitled  priest  asserted  over  the  national 
mind  of  Germany  a  command  more  absolute  than  that  of 
her  thousand  Princes  and  their  Imperial  head.  He  had  lit¬ 
tle  of  the  science  of  government,  nor,  in  truth,  of  any  other 
science.  But  his  mind  had  been  expanded  by  his  studies 
which  give  wisdom  even  to  the  simple.  His  understanding 
was  invigorated  by  habitual  converse  with  the  inspired 
writings,  and  his  soul  drunk  deeply  of  their  spirit.  And 
therefore  it  was,  that  from  him  Europe  first  heard  those 
great  social  maxims  which,  though  they  now  pass  for  ele¬ 
mentary  truths,  were  then  as  strange  in  theory  as  they  were 
unknown  in  practice.  He  fearlessly  maintained  that  the 
demands  of  the  insurgents  were  just.  He  asserted  the  all 
important,  though  obvious  truth,  that  power  is  confided  to 
the  rulers  of  mankind  not  to  gratify  their  caprice  or  selfish¬ 
ness,  but  as  a  sacred  trust  to  be  employed  for  the  common 
good  of  society  at  large;  and  he  denounced  their  injustice 
and  rapacity  with  the  same  stern  vehemence  which  he  had 
formerly  directed  against  the  spiritual  tyrants  of  the  world. 
For,  in  common  with  all  who  have  caught  the  genius  as 
well  as  the  creed  of  Christianity,  his  readiest  sympathies 
were  with  the  poor,  the  destitute,  and  the  oppressed;  and, 
in  contemplating  the  unequal  distribution  of  the  good  things 
of  life,  he  was  not  slowly  roused  to  a  generous  indignation 
against  those  to  whom  the  advantages  of  fortune  had  taught 
neither  pity  nor  foibearance.  But  it  was  an  emotion  re¬ 
strained  and  directed  by  far  deeper  thoughts  than  visit  the 
minds  of  sentimental  patriots,  or  selfish  demagogues.  He 
depicted,  in  his  own  ardent  and  homely  phrase,  the  guilt, 
the  folly,  and  the  miseries  of  civil  war.  He  reminded  the 
people  of  their  ignorance  and  their  faults.  He  bade  them 
not  to  divert  their  attention  from  these,  to  scan  the  errors 
of  their  superiors.  He  drew  from  the  evangelical  pre¬ 
cepts  of  patience,  meekness  and  long-suffering,  every  mo¬ 
tive  which  could  calm  their  agitated  passions.  He  implored 
them  not  to  dishonour  the  religion  they  professed;  and 
showed  that  subordination  in  human  society  was  a  divine 
ordinance,  designed  to  promote,  in  different  ways,  the  mo¬ 
ral  improvement  of  every  rank,  and  the  general  happiness 
of  all. 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


133 


The  authority,  the  courage,  and  the  pathetic  earnestness 
of  the  great  Reformer  were  exerted  in  vain.  Oppression, 
which  drives  wise  men  mad,  had  closed  the  ears  of  the 
German  peasantry  to  the  advice  even  of  Martin  Luther; 
and  they  plunged  into  a  contest  more  desperate  in  its  charac¬ 
ter,  and  more  fatal  in  its  results,  than  any  which  stains  the 
annals  of  the  empire.  He  felt,  with  the  utmost  keenness, 
the  reproach  thus  brought  unto  the  Reformation;  nor  may 
it  be  concealed,  that  at  last  his  voice  was  raised  in 
terrible  indignation  against  the  insurgents  by  whom  his 
pacific  efforts  had  been  defeated  and  his  remonstrances  de¬ 
spised.  His  old  antagonist,  Carlostadt,  was  charged  with 
a  guilty  participation  in  the  revolt;  and  in  his  distress  ap¬ 
pealed  to  the  much-reviled  Consubstantialist  for  protection. 
It  was  hardly  in  human  nature,  certainly  not  in  Luther’s, 
to  reject  such  a  supplicant.  The  odium  theologicum  is, 
after  all,  rather  a  vituperative  than  a  malignant  affection, 
even  its  worst  type;  and  Luther  possessed,  more  than  most 
polemics,  the  faculty  of  exorcising  the  Demon  of  Wrath 
through  the  channel  of  the  pen.  He  placed  Carlostadt 
in  safety,  defended  him  from  the  charge  of  fostering  rebel¬ 
lion,  and  demanded  for  him  a  fair  trial  and  a  patient  hear¬ 
ing.  His  preternatural  fate  has  been  already  noticed. 

But  a  more  formidable  enemy  was  at  hand.  The  su¬ 
premacy  of  Erasmus  in  the  world  of  letters  was  such  as 
no  other  writer  ever  lived  to  enjoy.  Literature  had  then 
a  universal  language,  and  the  learned  of  all  nations  ac¬ 
knowledged  him  as  their  guide  and  model.  In  an  age  of 
intense  mental  activity,  no  other  mind  was  so  impatient  of 
repose;  at  a  period  when  freedom  of  thought  was  asserted 
with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  new-born  hope,  he  emulated 
the  most  sanguine  of  the  insurgents  against  the  ancient  dy¬ 
nasties.  The  restorer,  almost  the  inventor,  of  the  popular 
interpretation  of  the  scriptures,  he  was  excelled  by  few,  if 
any,  in  the  more  ambitious  science  of  biblical  criticism. 
His  philosophy  (if  in  deference  to  custom  it  must  so  be 
called)  was  but  the  application  to  those  inquiries  in  which 
the  present  and  future  welfare  of  mankind  is  chiefly  in¬ 
volved,  of  an  admirable  good  sense — penetrating  sophisms 
under  the  most  specious  disguise,  and  repelling  mere 
verbal  subtleties,  however  imposing  their  pretensions,  or 
however  illustrious  their  patrons.  Alternately  a  man 
of  the  world,  and  a  recluse  scholar,  he  was  ever  wide 
12 


134 


STEPHEN^  MISCELLANIES. 


awake  to  the  real  business  of  life;  even  in  those  studies 
which  usually  conduct  the  mere  prisoners  of  the  cloister 
into  dreamy  and  transcendental  speculations.  In  his  hands, 
ihe  Latin  language  was  bent  to  uses  of  which  Cicero  him¬ 
self  might  have  thought  it  incapable;  and  without  any  bar¬ 
barous  innovations,  became,  almost  for  the  first  time,  the 
vehicle  of  playful  banter,  and  of  high  and  mysterious  doc¬ 
trines,  treated  in  a  familiar  and  easy  tone.  Of  the  two  im¬ 
perial  virtues,  industry  and  self-denial,  the  literary  charac¬ 
ter  of  Erasmus  was  adorned  by  the  first,  much  more  than 
by  the  second.  Grasping  at  universal  excellence  and  im¬ 
mediate  renown,  he  poured  out  orations,  verses,  essays,  dia¬ 
logues,  aphorisms,  biographies,  translations,  and  new  edi¬ 
tions  of  the  classical  writers,  with  a  rapidity  which  at  once 
dazzled  the  world,  and  exhausted  himself.  Deeply  as  the 
impress  of  his  mind  was  fastened  on  his  own  generation, 
those  only  of  his  countless  works  retain  their  charm  in  la¬ 
ter  times,  which  he  regarded  but  as  the  pastime  of  a  few 
leisure  hours.  Every  one  has  read  the  “  Colloquies,” 
and  admired  their  gay  and  graceful  exposure  of  the  frauds 
and  credulity  of  his  age.  The  “  Praise  of  Folly”  should 
never  be  separated  from  Holbein’s  etchings,  without  which 
the  reader  may  now  and  then  smile,  but  hardly  laugh. 
The  “  Ciceronians  ”  is  one  of  those  elaborate  pleasantries 
which  give  pleasure  only  to  the  laborious.  For  neither 
as  a  wit  nor  as  a  theologian,  nor  perhaps  even  as  a  critic, 
does  Erasmus  rank  among  master  intellects;  and  in  the 
other  departments  of  literature  no  one  has  ventured  to  claim 
for  him  a  very  elevated  station.  His  real  glory  is  to 
have  opened  at  once  new  channels  of  popular  and  of  ab¬ 
struse  knowledge — to  have  guided  the  few,  while  he  in¬ 
structed  the  many — to  have  lived  and  written  for  noble 
ends — to  have  been  surpassed  by  none  in  the  compass  of 
his  learning,  or  the  collective  value  of  his  works — and  to 
have  prepared  the  way  for  a  mighty  Revolution,  which  it 
required  moral  qualities  far  loftier  than  his  to  accomplish. 
For  the  soul  of  this  great  man  did  not  partake  of  the  energy 
of  his  intellectual  faculties.  He  repeatedly  confesses  that 
he  had  none  of  the  spirit  of  a  martyr;  and  the  acknowledg¬ 
ment  is  made  in  the  tone  of  sarcasm,  rather  than  in  that  of 
regret.  He  belonged  to  that  class  of  actors  on  the  scene 
of  life,  who  have  always  appeared  as  the  harbingers  of  great 
social  changes; — men  gifted  with  the  power  to  discern,  and 


LUTHER  AND  TIIE  REFORMATION'. 


135 


the  hardihood  to  proclaim,  truths  of  which  they  want  the 
courage  to  encounter  the  infallible  results;  who  outrun  their 
generation  in  thought,  but  lag  behind  it  in  action;  players  at 
the  sport  of  reform  so  long  as  reform  itself  appears  at  an 
indefinite  distance;  more  ostentatious  of  their  mental  supe¬ 
riority,  than  anxious  for  the  well-being  of  mankind;  dream¬ 
ing  that  the  dark  page  of  history  may  hereafter  become  a 
fairy  tale,  in  which  enchantment  will  bring  to  pass  a  glo¬ 
rious  catastrophe,  unbought  by  intervening  strife,  and  agony, 
and  suffering;  and  therefore  overwhelmed  with  alarm  when 
the  edifice  begins  to  totter,  of  which  their  own  hands  have 
sapped  the  foundation.  He  was  a  Reformer  until  the  Re¬ 
formation  became  a  fearful  reality;  a  jester  at  the  bulwarks 
of  the  papacy  until  they  began  to  give  way;  a  propagator 
of  the  Scriptures,  until  men  betook  themselves  to  the  study 
and  the  application  of  them;  depreciating  the  mere  outward 
forms  of  religion,  until  they  had  come  to  be  estimated  at 
their  real  value;  in  short,  a  learned,  ingenious,  benevolent, 
amiable,  timid,  irresolute  man,  who,  bearing  the  responsi¬ 
bility,  resigned  to  others  the  glory  of  rescuing  the  human 
mind  from  the  bondage  of  a  thousand  years.  The  distance 
between  his  career  and  that  of  Luther  was,  therefore,  con¬ 
tinually  enlarging,  until  they  at  length  moved  in  opposite 
directions,  and  met  each  other  with  mutual  animosity.  The 
Reformer  foresaw  and  deprecated  this  collision  ;  and  Bos- 
suet  has  condemned  as  servile  the  celebrated  letter  in  whicfi 
Luther  endeavoured  to  avert  the  impending  contest.  In 
common  with  many  of  his  censures  of  the  great  father  of 
the  Protestant  churches,  this  is  evidently  the  result  of  pre¬ 
judice.  It  was  conceived  with  tenderness,  and  expressed 
with  becoming  dignity. 

“I  do  not,”  he  says,  “reproach  you  in  your  estrange¬ 
ments  from  us,  fearing  lest  I  should  hinder  the  cause  which 
you  maintain  against  our  common  enemies  the  Papists.  For 
the  same  reason,  it  gives  me  no  displeasure  that,  in  many 
of  your  works,  you  have  sought  to  obtain  their  favour,  or 
to  appease  their  hostility,  by  assailing  us  with  undeserved 
reproaches  and  sarcasms.  It  is  obvious  that  God  has  not 
given  you  the  energy  or  the  courage  requisite  for  an  open 
and  fearless  attack  on  these  monsters,  nor  am  I  of  a  tem¬ 
per  to  exact  from  you  what  is  beyond  your  strength.” — 
“  I  have  respected  your  infirmity,  and  that  measure  of  the 
gifts  of  God  which  is  in  you.  None  can  deny  that  you 


136 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


have  promoted  the  cause  of  literature,  thus  opening  the 
way  to  the  right  understanding  of  the  Scriptures;  or  that 
the  endowment  which  you  have  thus  received  from  God  is 
magnificent  and  worthy  of  all  admiration.  Here  is  a  just 
cause  for  gratitude.  1  have  never  desired  that  you  should 
quit  your  cautious  and  measured  course  to  enter  our  camp. 
Great  are  the  services  you  render  by  your  genius  and  elo¬ 
quence;  and  as  your  heart  fails  you,  it  is  best  that  you  should 
serve  God  with  such  powers  as  He  has  given  you.  My 
only  apprehension  is,  lest  you  should  permit  yourself  to  be 
dragged  by  our  enemies  to  publish  an  attack  upon  our  doc¬ 
trines,  for  then  I  should  be  compelled  to  resist  you  to  the 
face.” — “  Things  have  now  reached  a  point  at  which  we 
should  feel  no  anxiety  for  our  cause,  even  though  Erasmus 
himself  should  direct  all  his  abilities  against  us.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  our  party  should  be  impatient  of  your  attacks. 
Human  weakness  is  alarmed  and  oppressed  by  the  weight 
of  the  name  of  Erasmus,  Once  to  be  lashed  by  Erasmus 
is  a  far  different  thing  from  being  exposed  to  the  assaults 
of  all  the  Papists  put  together.” — “  I  have  written  all  this 
in  proof  of  my  candour,  and  because  I  desire  that  God  may 
impart  to  you  a  spirit  worthy  of  your  name.  If  that  spirit 
be  withheld,  at  least  let  me  implore  you  to  remain  a  mere 
spectator  of  our  tragedy.  Do  not  join  your  forces  to  our 
enemies.  Abstain  from  writing  against  me,  and  I  will 
write  nothing  against  you.” 

This  lofty  tone  grated  on  the  fastidious  ear  of  the  mo¬ 
narch  of  literature.  He  watched  his  opportunity,  and 
inflicted  a  terrible  revenge.  To  have  attacked  the  doc¬ 
trines  of  the  Reformation  would  have  been  to  hazard  an 
unanswerable  charge  of  inconsistency.  But  Luther,  in 
exploring  his  path,  had  lost  his  way  in  the  labyrinth  of 
the  question  of  free  will ;  and  had  published  opinions 
which  were  nothing  short  of  the  avowal  of  absolute  fa¬ 
talism.  In  a  treatise  De  Libero  Arbitrio ,  Erasmus  made  a 
brilliant  charge  on  this  exposed  part  of  his  adversary’s 
position:  exhausting  all  the  resources  of  his  sagacity,  wit, 
and  learning,  to  lower  the  theological  character  of  the 
founder  of  the  Lutheran  Church.  The  Reformer  stag¬ 
gered  beneath  this  blow.  For  metaphysical  debate  he  was 
ill  prepared — to  the  learning  of  his  antagonist  he  had  no 
pretension — and  to  his  wit  could  oppose  nothing  but  indig¬ 
nant  vehemence.  His  answer,  l)e  Servo  Arbitrio ,  has 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


137 


been  confessed  by  his  most  ardent  admirers,  to  have  been 
but  a  feeble  defence  to  his  formidable  enemy.  The  tem¬ 
per  in  which  he  conducted  the  dispute  may  be  judged  from 
the  following  example: — Erasmus,  that  king  of  amphibo¬ 
logy,  reposes  calmly  on  his  amphibological  throne,  cheats 
us  with  his  ambiguous  language,  and  claps  his  hands  when 
he  finds  us  entangled  amongst  his  insidious  tropes,  like 
beasts  of  chase  fallen  into  the  toils.  Then  seizing  the 
occasion  for  his  rhetoric,  he  springs  on  his  captive  with 
loud  cries,  tearing,  scourging,  tormenting,  and  devoting  him 
to  the  infernals,  because,  as  it  pleases  him  to  say,  his  words 
have  been  understood  in  a  calumnious,  scandalous  and  Sa¬ 
tanic  sense,  though  it  was  his  own  design  that  they  should 
be  so  taken.  See  him  come  on  creeping  like  a  viper,” 
&c.  <fcc. 

To  the  last,  the  sense  of  this  defeat  would  appear  to  have 
clung  to  Luther.  Accustomed  to  triumph  in  theological 
debate,  he  had  been  overthrown  in  the  presence  of  abashed 
friends  and  exulting  enemies;  and  the  record  of  his  familiar 
conversation  bears  deep  traces  of  his  keen  remembrance  of 
this  humiliation.  Many  of  the  contumelious  words  as¬ 
cribed  to  him  on  this  subject,  if  they  really  fell  from  his 
lips,  were  probably  some  of  those  careless  expressions  in 
which  most  men  indulge  in  the  confidence  of  private  life; 
and  which,  when  quoted  with  the  utmost  literal  exactness, 
assume,  in  books  published  for  the  perusal  of  the  world  at 
large,  a  new  meaning,  and  an  undesigned  emphasis.  But 
there  is  litde  difficulty  in  receiving  as  authentic  the  words 
he  is  said  to  have  pronounced  when  gazing  on  the  picture 
of  Erasmus — that  it  was,  like  himself,  full  of  craft  and  ma¬ 
lice;  a  comment  on  the  countenance  of  that  illustrious  schot- 
lar,  as  depicted  by  Holbein,  from  which  it  is  impossible 
altogether  to  dissent. 

The  contests  with  Erasmus  and  the  Sacramentarians  had 
taken  place  in  that  debateable  land  which  religion  and  phi¬ 
losophy  each  claims  for  her  own.  But  Luther  was  now 
to  oppose  a  revolt  not  merely  against  philosophy  and  reli¬ 
gion,  but  against  decency  and  common  sense.  Equally 
astounding  and  scandalous  were  the  antics  which  the  minds 
of  men  performed  when,  exempt  from  the  control  of  their 
ancient  prepossessions,  they  had  not  as  yet  been  brought 
into  subjection  to  any  other.  Throughout  the  north  of 
Germany  and  the  Netherlands,  there  were  found  many 

12* 


138 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


converts  to  the  belief,  that  a  divorce  might  be  effected  be¬ 
tween  the  virtues  which  the  Gospel  exacts,  and  those  new 
relations  between  man  and  the  Author  of  his  being,  which 
it  at  once  creates  and  reveals;  that,  in  short,  it  was  possi¬ 
ble  to  be  at  the  same  time  a  Christian  and  a  knave.  The 
connexion  between  this  sottish  delirium,  and  the  rejection 
of  infant  baptism,  was  an  accident,  or  at  most  a  caprice;  and 
the  name  of  Anabaptist,  afterwards  borne  by  so  many  wise 
and  good  men,  is  unfortunately,  though  indelibly  associated 
with  the  crazy  rabble  who  first  assumed  or  received  it  at 
Munster.  Herman  Shaproeda,  and  after  him  Rothmann, 
were  the  first  who  instructed  the  inhabitants  of  that  city  in 
these  ill-omened  novelties ;  and  they  quickly  gained  the 
authority  which  any  bold  and  unscrupulous  guide  may  com¬ 
mand  in  times  when  hereditary  creeds  have  been  abandoned 
by  those  who  want  the  capacity  or  the  knowledge  to  shape 
out  new  opinions  for  themselves.  He  who  has  not  re¬ 
ceived  adult  baptism  is  not  a  Christian;  he  who  is  not  a 
Christian  is  a  Pagan;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  faithful  to 
oppose  the  enemies  of  truth  by  all  arms,  spiritual  or  secu¬ 
lar,  within  their  reach.  Strong  in  this  reasoning,  and 
stronger  still  in  numbers  and  in  zeal,  the  Anabaptists  de¬ 
clared  open  war,  expelled  the  Catholics  and  Lutherans  from 
the  city,  pillaged  the  churches  and  convents,  and  adopted 
as  their  watchword  the  exhortation  to  repent,  with  which 
the  Baptist  of  old  had  addressed  the  multitudes  who  sur¬ 
rounded  him  in  the  wilderness  of  Judea.  If  the  insurgents 
did  no  works  meet  for  repentance,  they  did  many  to  be 
bitterly  repented  of.  Their  success  was  accompanied  by 
cruelty,  and  followed  by  still  fouler  crimes.  John  de  Mat- 
theison,  their  chief  prophet,  established  a  community  of 
goods,  and  committed  to  the  flames  every  book  except  the 
Bible.  John  of  Leyden,  his  successor,  was  a  journeyman 
tailor,  and,  though  at  once  a  rogue  and  a  fanatic,  was  not  with¬ 
out  some  qualities  which  might  have  adorned  a  better  cause. 
He  conducted  the  defence  of  the  city  against  the  Bishop 
with  as  much  skill  and  gallantry  as  if  his  accustomed  seat 
had  been,  not  the  shopboard,  but  the  saddle  of  a  belted 
knight.  In  the  Scriptures,  which  his  predecessor  had  ex¬ 
empted  from  the  general  conflagration,  he  found  a  sanction 
for  the  plurality  of  wives,  and  proofs  that  the  sceptre  of 
David  had  passed  into  his  own  hands.  Twelve  princes, 
representing  the  heads  of  the  tribes  of  Israel,  received  from 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


139 


him  authority  to  ascend  the  thrones  of  Europe;  and  apostles 
were  sent  to  the  great  cities  of  Germany  to  propagate  the 
new  faith,  and  to  attest  the  miracles  of  which  they  had  been 
the  witnesses.  The  doctrine  they  taught  was  less  abstruse 
than  might  have  been  anticipated.  It  consisted  in  these 
propositions: — There  have  been  four  prophets:  the  true  are 
King  David  and  John  of  Leyden;  the  false  are  the  Pope 
and  Martin  Luther:  but  Luther  is  worse  than  the  Pope. 
While  this  pithy  creed  was  inculcated  without  the  walls, 
the  most  frightful  debaucheries,  and  a  strange  burlesque  on 
royalty,  went  on  within.  The  king  paraded  the  city,  at¬ 
tended  by  his  queen,  and  followed  by  a  long  train  of  led 
horses  caparisoned  in  gold  brocade,  a  drawn  sword  being 
borne  at  his  left  hand,  and  a  crown  and  Bible  at  his  right. 
Seated  on  a  throne  in  the  public  square,  he  received  peti¬ 
tions  from  supplicants  prostrate  on  the  earth  before  him. 
Then  followed  impious  parodies  on  the  most  sacred  offices 
of  the  Christian  worship,  and  scenes  of  profligacy  which 
may  not  be  described.  To  these,  ere  long,  succeeded  hor¬ 
rors  which  rendered  the  New  Jerusalem  no  inapt  antitype 
of  the  old.  The  conquered  king  expiated  his  crimes  on 
the  scaffold, — enduring  protracted  and  inhuman  torments 
with  a  firmness  which  redeems  his  character  from  the  ab¬ 
horrence  to  which  it  had  so  many  indisputable  titles.  Yet 
the  story  is  not  without  interest.  '  The  rapidity  with  which 
the  contagion  of  such  stupid  extravagances  was  propagated, 
and  the  apparent  genuineness  of  the  belief  which  a  man  of 
much  fortitude  and  some  acuteness  at  length  yielded  to  the 
coinage  of  his  own  brain,  however  frequent,  are  still  curious 
phenomena  in  the  science  of  mental  nosology.  From  his 
answers  to  the  interrogatories  which  attended  his  trial,  it 
may  be  inferred  that  he  was  perfectly  sane.  His  mind  had 
been  bewildered,  partly  by  a  depraved  imagination  and  un¬ 
governed  appetites,  and  partly  by  his  encounter  with  ques¬ 
tions  too  large  for  his  capacity,  and  with  detached  sentences 
from  Holy  Writ,  of  which  he  perceived  neither  the  obvious 
sense  nor  the  more  sublime  intimations.  The  memory  of 
this  guilty,  presumptuous  and  unhappy  man,  is  rescued 
from  oblivion  by  the  audacity  of  his  enterprise,  and  still 
more  by  the  influence  it  exerted  in  arresting  the  progress 
of  the  Reformation. 

The  reproach,  however  unmerited,  fell  heavily  on  Lu¬ 
ther.  It  is  the  common  fate  of  all  who  dare  to  become 


140 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


leaders  in  the  war  against  abuses,  whether  in  religious  or 
political  society,  to  be  confounded  with  the  baser  sort  of 
innovators,  who  at  once  hate  their  persons,  and  exaggerate 
and  caricature  the  principles  on  which  they  have  acted. 
For  this  penalty  of  rendering  eminent  services  to  the  world 
every  wise  man  is  prepared,  and  every  brave  man  endures  „ 
it  firmly,  in  the  belief  that  a  day  is  coming  when  his  fame 
will  be  no  longer  oppressed  by  this  unworthy  association. 
Luther’s  faith  in  the  ultimate  deliverance  of  his  good  name 
from  the  obloquy  cast  on  it  by  the  madness  of  the  Ana¬ 
baptists,  has  but  imperfectly  been  justified  by  the  event. 
Long  after  his  name  belonged  to  the  brightest  page  of  human 
history,  it  found  in  Bossuet  an  antagonist  as  inveterate  as 
Tetzel,  more  learned  than  Cajetan,  and  surpassing  Erasmus 
himself  in  eloquence  and  ingenuity.  Later  still  has  arisen,  in 
the  person  of  Mr.  Hallam,  a  censor,  whose  religious  opi¬ 
nions,  unquestionable  integrity,  boundless  knowledge,  and 
admirable  genius,  give  a  fearful  weight  to  his  unfavourable 
judgment  of  the  Father  of  the  Reformation.  Neither  of 
these  great  writers,  indeed,  countenance  the  vulgar  calum¬ 
ny  which  would  identify  the  principles  of  Martin  Luther 
with  those  of  John  of  Leyden,  although  both  of  them  ar¬ 
raign  him  in  nearly  the  same  terms,  as  having  adopted  and 
taught  the  antinomian  doctrines  of  which  the  Anabaptists 
exhibited  the  practical  results. 

The  course  we  are  shaping  having  brought  us  within 
reach  of  the  whirlpools  of  this  interminable  controversy, 
roaring  in  endless  circles  over  a  dark  and  bottomless 
abyss,  we  cannot  altogether  yield  to  that  natural  impulse 
which  would  pass  them  by  in  cautious  silence  and  with 
averted  eyes.  The  Lcibarum  of  Luther  was  a  banner  in¬ 
scribed  with  the  legend  “Justification  by  Faith  ” — the  com¬ 
pendium,  the  essence,  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  his 
distinctive  creed.  Of  the  many,  received  or  possible  in¬ 
terpretations  of  this  enigmatical  symbol,  that  which  Bossuet 
and  Mr.  Hallam  regard  as  most  accordant  with  the  views 
of  the  great  standard-bearer  himself,  may  be  stated  in  the 
following  terms: — If  a  man  be  firmly  assured  that  his  sins 
have  been  remitted  by  God,  in  the  exercise  of  a  mercy 
gratuitous  and  unmerited  as  it  respects  the  offender  him¬ 
self,  but  accorded  as  the  merited  reward  of  the  great  pro¬ 
pitiation,  that  man  stands  within  the  line  which,  even  in 
this  life,  separates  the  objects  of  the  Divine  favour  from  the 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


141 


objects  of  the  Divine  displeasure.  We  believe  this  epitome 
of  the  Lutheran  doctrine  to  be  inaccurate,  and,  but  for  the 
greatness  of  the  names  by  which  it  is  sanctioned,  we  should 
have  ventured  to  add,  superficial.  In  hazarding  a  different 
translation  of  Luther’s  meaning  into  the  language  of  the 
world  we  live  in,  we  do  but  oppose  one  assertion  to  ano¬ 
ther,  leaving  the  whole  weight  of  authority  on  the  un¬ 
favourable  side.  The  appeal  ultimately  lies  to  those  whose 
studies  have  rendered  them  familiar  with  the  Reformer’s 
writings,  and  especially  with  his  “Commentary  on  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians,”  which  he  was  wont  affection¬ 
ately  to  call  his  Catherine  de  Bora.  It  must  be  conceded 
that  they  abound  in  expressions  which,  detached  from  the 
mass,  would  more  than  justify  the  censure  of  the  historian 
of  the  “Literature  of  the  Mjddle  Ages.”  But  no  writer 
would  be  less  fairly  judged  than  Luther  by  isolated  pas¬ 
sages.  Too  impetuous  to  pause  for  exact  discrimination, 
too  long  entangled  in  scholastic  learning  to  have  ever  en¬ 
tirely  recovered  the  natural  relish  for  plain  common  sense, 
and  compelled  habitually  to  move  in  that  turbid  polemical 
region  which  pure  and  unrefracted  light  never  visits,  Lu¬ 
ther,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  intelligible  only  to  the  im¬ 
partial  and  laborious,  and  might  almost  be  supposed  to  have 
courted  the  reproaches  which  he  least  deserves.  Stripped 
of  the  technicalities  of  divinity  and  of  the  schools,  his  Jlr- 
ticulus  stantis  aut  cadentis  ecclesix  may,  perhaps,  with  no 
material  error  be  thus  explained. 

Define  the  word  “conviction”  as  a  deliberate  assent  to 
the  truth  of  any  statement,  and  the  word  “  persuasion  ”  as 
the  habitual  reference  to  any  such  truth  (real  or  supposed) 
as  a  rule  of  conduct;  and  it  follows,  that  we  are  persuaded 
of  many  things  of  which  we  are  not  convinced:  which  is 
credulity  or  superstition.  Thus,  Cicero  was  persuaded  of 
the  sanctity  of  the  mysteries  which  he  celebrated  as  one  of 
the  College  of  Augurs.  But  the  author  of  the  Treatise 
De  Naturci  Deorum  had  certainly  no  corresponding  con¬ 
victions.  We  are  convinced  of  much  of  which  we  are  not 
persuaded,  which,  in  theological  language,  is  a  “  dead 
faith.”  The  Marquis  of  Worcester  deliberately  assented 
to  the  truth,  that  the  expansive  force  of  steam  could  be  ap¬ 
plied  to  propel  a  vessel  through  the  water;  but  wanting  the 
necessary  “  persuasion,”  he  left  to  others  the  praise  of  the 
discovery.  Again,  there  are  many  propositions  of  which 


142 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


we  are  at  once  convinced  and  persuaded,  and  this  in  the 
Lutheran  style  is  a  •“  living  or  saving  faith.”  In  this  sense 
Columbus  believed  the  true  configuration  of  the  earth,  and 
launched  his  caravels  to  make  known  the  two  hemispheres 
to  each  other.  It  is  by  the  aid  of  successful  experiment 
engendering  confidence;  of  habit  producing  facility;  and  of 
earnest  thoughts  quickening  the  imagination  and  kindling 
desire,  that  our  opinions  thus  ripen  into  motives,  and  our 
theoretical  convictions  into  active  persuasion.  It  is,  there¬ 
fore,  nothing  else  than  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  speak 
of  Christian  faith  separable  from  moral  virtue!  The  prac¬ 
tical  results  of  that  as  of  any  other  motive,  will  vary  directly 
as  the  intensity  of  the  impulse,  and  inversely  as  the  number 
and  force  of  the  impediments;  but  a  motive  which  produces 
no  motion,  is  the  same  thing  as  an  attraction  which  does 
not  draw,  or  as  a  propensity  which  does  not  incline.  Far 
different  as  was  the  style  in  which  Luther  enounced  his 
doctrine,  the  careful  study  of  his  writings  will,  we  think, 
convince  any  dispassionate  man  that  such  was  his  real 
meaning.  The  faith  of  which  he  wrote  was  not  a  mere 
opinion,  or  a  mere  emotion.  It  was  a  mental  energy,  of 
slow  but  stately  growth,  of  which  an  intellectual  assent  was 
the  basis;  high  and  holy  tendencies  the  lofty  superstructure; 
and  a  virtuous  life  the  inevitable  use  and  destination.  In 
his  own  emphatic  words: — “  We  do  not  say  the  sun  fiught 
to  shine,  a  good  tree  ought  to  produce  good  fruit,  seven 
and  three  ought  to  make  ten.  The  sun  shines  by  its  own 
proper  nature,  without  being  bidden  to  do  so;  in  the  same 
manner  the  good  tree  yields  its  good  fruit;  seven  and  three 
have  made  ten  from  everlasting — it  is  needless  to  require 
them  to  do  so  hereafter.” 

If  any  credit  is  due  to  his  great  antagonist,  Luther’s  doc¬ 
trine  of  “Justification”  is  not  entitled  to  the  praise  or  cen¬ 
sure  of  novelty.  Rossuet  resents  this  claim  as  injurious  to 
the  Church  of  Rome,  and  as  founded  on  an  extravagant 
misrepresentation  of  her  real  doctrines.  To  ascribe  to  the 
great  and  wise  men  of  whom  she  justly  boasts,  or  indeed 
to  attribute  to  any  one  of  sound  mind,  the  dogma  or  the 
dream  which  would  deliberately  transfer  the  ideas  of  the 
market  to  the  relations  between  man  and  his  Creator,  is  no¬ 
thing  better  than  an  ignorant  and  uncharitable  bigotry.  To 
maintain  that,  till  Luther  dispelled  the  illusion,  the  Chris¬ 
tian  world  regarded  the  good  actions  of  this  life  as  investing 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


j  43 


even  him  who  performs  them  best,  with  a  right  to  demand 
from  his  Maker  an  eternity  of  uninterrupted  and  perfect 
bliss,  is  just  as  rational  as  to  claim  for  him  the  detection  of 
the  universal  error  which  had  assigned  to  the  animal  man 
a  place  among  the  quadrupeds.  There  is  in  every  human 
mind  a  certain  portion  of  indestructible  common  sense. 
Small  as  this  may  be  in  most  of  us,  it  is  yet  enough  to 
rescue  us  all,  at  least  when  sane  and  sober,  from  the  stu¬ 
pidity  of  thinking  not  only  that  the  relations  of  creditor  and 
debtor  can  really  subsist  between  ourselves  and  Him  who 
made  us,  but  that  a  return  of  such  inestimable  value  can  be 
due  from  Him  for  such  ephemeral  and  imperfect  services 
as  ours.  People  may  talk  foolishly  on  these  matters;  but 
no  one  seriously  believes  this.  Luther  slew  no  such  mon¬ 
ster,  for  there  were  none  such  to  be  slain.  The  error 
which  he  refuted  was  far  more  subtle  and  refined  than  this, 
and  is  copiously  explained  by  Hooker,  to  whose  splendid 
sermon  on  the  subject  it  is  a  “  good  work  ”  to  refer  any  to 
whom  it  is  unknown. 

The  celebrated  thesis  of  “Justification  by  Faith,”  if  re¬ 
ally  an  Antinomian  doctrine,  was  peculiar  to  Luther  and 
to  his  followers  only  in  so  far  as  he  extricated  it  from  a 
mass  of  superstitions  by  which  it  had  been  obscured,  and 
assigned  to  it  the  prominence  in  his  system  to  which  it  was 
justly  entitled.  But  if  his  indignation  had  been  roused 
against  those  who4iad  darkened  this  great  truth,  they  byr 
wThom  it  was  made  an  apology  for  lewdness  and  rapine 
were  the  objects  of  his  scorn  and  abhorrence.  His  attack 
on  the  Anabaptists  is  conceived  in  terms  so  vigorous  and 
so  whimsical,  that  it  is  difficult  to  resist  the  temptation  to 
exhibit  some  extracts.  But  who  would  needlessly  disturb 
the  mould  beneath  which  lies  interred  and  forgotten  a  mass 
of  disgusting  folly,  which  in  a  remote  age  exhaled  a  moral 
pestilence?  Resolving  all  the  sinister  phenomena  of  life, 
by  assuming  the  direct  interference  of  the  devil  and  his 
angels  in  the  affairs  of  men,  Luther  thought  that  this  influ¬ 
ence  had  been  most  unskilfully  employed  at  Munster.  It 
was  a  coup  manque  on  the  part  of  the  great  enemy  of 
mankind.  It  showed  that  Satan  was  but  a  bungler  at  his 
art.  The  evil  one  had  been  betrayed  into  this  gross  mis¬ 
take  that  the  world  might  be  on  their  guard  against  the 
more  astute  artifices  to  which  he  was  about  to  resort: — 

“These  new  theologians  did  not,”  he  said,  “explain 


144 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


themselves  very  clearly.”  “  Having  hot  soup  in  his 
mouth,  the  devil  was  obliged  to  content  himself  with 
mumbling  out  mum  mum ,  wishing  doubtless  to  say  some¬ 
thing  worse.”  “The  spirit  which  would  deceive  the 
world  must  not  begin  by  yielding  to  the  fascinations  of 
woman,  by  grasping  the  emblems  and  honours  of  royalty, 
still  less  by  cutting  people’s  throats.  This  is  too  broad; 
rapacity  and  oppression  can  deceive  no  one.  The  real 
deceit  will  be  practised  by  him  who  shall  dress  himself  in 
mean  apparel,  assume  a  lamentable  countenance,  hang  down 
his  head,  refuse  money,  abstain  from  meat,  fly  from  wo¬ 
man  as  so  much  poison,  disclaim  all  temporal  authority, 
and  reject  all  honours  as  damnable;  and  who  then,  creep¬ 
ing  softly  towards  the  throne,  the  sceptre,  and  the  keys, 
shall  pick  them  up  and  possess  himself  of  them  by  stealth. 
Such  is  the  man  who  would  succeed,  who  would  deceive 
the  angels,  and  the  very  elect.  This  would  indeed  be  a 
splendid  devil,  with  a  plumage  more  gorgeous  than  the 
peacock  or  the  pheasant.  But  thus  impudently  to  seize 
the  crown,  to  take  not  merely  one  wife,  but  as  many  as 
caprice  or  appetite  suggests — oh!  it  is  the  conduct  of  a 
mere  schoolboy  devil,  of  a  devil  at  his  ABC;  or  rather, 
it  is  the  true  Satan — Satan,  the  learned  and  the  crafty,  but 
fettered  by  the  hands  of  God,  with  chains  so  heavy  that  he 
cannot  move.  It  is  to  warn  us,  it  is  to  teach  us  to  fear  his 
chastisements,  before  the  field  is  thrown  open  to  a  more 
subtle  devil,  who  will  assail  us  no  longer  with  the  ABC, 
but  with  the  real,  the  difficult  text.  If  this  mere  deviling 
at  his  letters  can  do  such  things,  what  will  he  not  do  when 
he  comes  to  act  as  a  reasonable,  knowing,  skilful,  lawyer¬ 
like,  theological  devil?” 

These  various  contests  produced  in  the  mind  of  Luther 
the  effects  which  painful  experience  invariably  yields,  when 
the  search  for  truth,  prompted  by  the  love  of  truth,  has 
been  long  and  earnestly  maintained.  Advancing  years 
brought  with  them  an  increase  of  candour,  moderation,  and 
charity.  He  had  lived  to  see  his  principles  strike  their 
roots  deeply  through  a  large  part  of  the  Christian  world,  and 
he  anticipated,  with  perhaps  too  sanguine  hopes,  their 
universal  triumph.  His  unshaken  reliance  in  them  was 
attested  by  his  dying  breath.  But  he  had  also  lived  to 
witness  the  defection  of  some  of  his  allies,  and  the  guilt 
and  folly  of  others.  Prolonged  inquiry  had  disclosed  to 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


115 


him  many  difficulties  which  had  been  overlooked  in  the 
first  ardour  of  the  dispute,  and  he  had  become  painfully 
convinced  that  the  establishment  of  truth  is  an  enterprise 
incomparably  more  arduous  than  the  overthrow  of  error. 
His  constitutional  melancholy  deepened  into  a  more  habi¬ 
tual  sadness — his  impetuosity  gave  way  to  a  more  serene 
and  pensive  temper — and  as  the  tide  of  life  ebbed  with  still 
increasing  swiftness,  he  was  chiefly  engaged  in  meditating 
on  those  cardinal  and  undisputed  truths  on  which  the 
weary  mind  may  securely  repose,  and  the  troubled  heart 
be  still.  The  maturer  thoughts  of  age  could  not,  however, 
quell  the  rude  vigour  and  fearless  confidence  which  had 
borne  him  through  his  early  contests.  With  little  remain¬ 
ing  fondness  or  patience  for  abstruse  speculations,  he  was 
challenged  to  debate  one  of  the  more  subtle  points  of  the¬ 
ology.  His  answer  cannot  be  too  deeply  pondered  by 
polemics  at  large.  “Should  we  not,”  he  said,  “get  on 
better  in  this  discussion  with  the  assistance  of  a  jug  or  two 
of  beer?”  The  offended  disputant  retired, — “the  devil,” 
observed  Luther,  “being  a  haughty  spirit,  who  can  bear 
any  thing  better  than  being  laughed  at.”  This  growing 
contempt  for  unprofitable  questions  was  indicated  by  a  cor¬ 
responding  decline  in  Luther’s  original  estimate  of  the  im¬ 
portance  of  some  of  the  minor  topics  in  debate  with  the 
Church  of  Rome.  He  was  willing  to  consign  to  silence 
the  question  of  the  veneration  due  to  the  Saints.  He  sus¬ 
pended  his  judgment  respecting  prayers  for  the  dead.  He 
was  ready  to  acquiesce  in  the  practice  of  auricular  confes¬ 
sion,  for  the  solace  of  those  who  regarded  it  as  an  essential 
religious  observance.  He  advised  Spalatin  to  do  whatever 
he  thought  best  respecting  the  elevation  of  the  Host,  depre¬ 
cating  only  any  positive  rule  on  the  subject.  He  held  the 
established  ceremonies  to  be  useful,  from  the  impression 
they  left  on  gross  and  uncultivated  minds.  He  was  tole¬ 
rant  of  images  in  the  churches,  and  censured  the  whole  race 
of  image-breakers  with  his  accustomed  vehemence.  Even 
the  use  of  the  vernacular  tongue  in  public  worship,  he  con¬ 
sidered  as  a  convenient  custom,  not  an  indispensable  rule. 
Carlostadt  had  insisted  upon  it  as  essential.  “Oh,  this  is 
an  incorrigible  spirit,”  replied  the  more  tolerant  Reformer; 
“for  ever  and  forever  positive  obligations  and  sins!” 

But  while  his  Catholic  spirit  thus  raised  him  above  the 
exaggerated  estimate  of  those  external  things  which  chiefly 
13 


146 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


attracted  the  hostility  of  narrower  minds,  his  sense  of  the 
value  of  those  great  truths  in  which  he  judged  the  essence 
of  religion  to  consist,  was  acquiring  increased  intensity 
and  depth.  In  common  with  Montaigne  and  Richard  Bax¬ 
ter  (names  hardly  to  be  associated  on  any  other  ground,) 
he  considered  the  Lord’s  Prayer  as  surpassing  every  other 
devotional  exercise.  “It  is  my  prayer,”  said  Luther; 
“there  is  nothing  like  it.”  In  the  same  spirit,  he  pre¬ 
ferred  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  to  all  the  other  sacred  books, 
as  containing  more  of  the  language  of  Christ  himself.  As 
he  felt,  so  he  taught.  He  practised  the  most  simple  and 
elementary  style  of  preaching.  “If,”  he  said,  “in  my  ser¬ 
mons  I  thought  of  Melancthon  and  other  doctors,  I  should 
do  no  good;  but  I  speak  with  perfect  plainness  for  the  ig¬ 
norant,  and  that  satisfies  every  body.  Such  Greek,  Latin, 
and  Hebrew  as  I  have,  I  reserve  for  the  learned.”  “  No¬ 
thing  is  more  agreeable  or  useful  for  a  common  audience 
than  to  preach  on  the  duties  and  examples  of  Scripture. 
Sermons  on  grace  and  justification  fall  coldly  on  their 
ears.”  He  taught  that  good  and  true  theology  consisted  in 
the  practice,  the  habit,  and  the  life  of  the  Christian  graces — 
Christ  being  the  foundation.  “  Such,  however,”  he  says, 
“is  not  our  theology  now-a-days.  We  have  substituted 
for  it  a  rational  and  speculative  theology.  This  was  not 
the  case  with  David.  He  acknowledged  his  sins,  and  said, 
Miserere  mei ,  JDomine 

Luther’s  power  of  composition  is,  indeed,  held  very 
cheap  by  a  judge  so  competent  as  Mr.  Hallam;  nor  is  it 
easy  to  commend  his  more  elaborate  style.  It  was  com¬ 
pared  by  himself  to  the  earthquake  and  the  wind  which 
preceded  the  still  small  voice  addressed  to  the  prophet  in 
the  wilderness;  and  is  so  turbulent,  copious,  and  dogmati¬ 
cal,  as  to  suggest  the  supposition  that  it  was  dictated  to  a 
class  of  submissive  pupils,  under  the  influence  of  extreme 
excitement.  Obscure,  redundant,  and  tautologous  as  these 
writings  appear,  they  are  still  redeemed  from  neglect,  not 
only  by  the  mighty  name  of  their  author,  but  by  that  ail- 
pervading  vitality  and  downright  earnestness  which  atone 
for  the  neglect  of  all  the  mere  artifices  of  style;  and  by  that 
profound  familiarity  with  the  sacred  oracles,  which  far 
more  than  compensates  for  the  absence  of  the  speculative 
wisdom  which  is  drawn  from  lower  sources.  But  the 
Reformer’s  lighter  and  more  occasional  works  not  unfre- 


LUTHER  AND  TIIE  REFORMATION". 


147 


quently  breathe  the  very  soul  of  eloquence.  His  language 
in  these,  ranges  between  colloquial  homeliness  and  the 
highest  dignity, — now  condensed  into  vivid  figures,  and 
then  diffused  into  copious  amplification, — exhibiting  the 
successive  phases  of  his  ardent,  melancholy,  playful,  and 
heroic  character  in  such  rapid  succession,  and  with  such 
perfect  harmony,  as  to  resemble  the  harp  of  Dryden’s 
Timotheus,  alternately  touched  and  swept  by  the  hand  of 
the  master — a  performance  so  bold  and  so  varied,  as  to 
scare  the  critic  from  the  discharge  of  his  office.  The  ad- 
dress,  for  example,  to  the  Swabian  insurgents  and  nobles, 
if  not  executed  with  the  skill,  is  at  least  conceived  in  the 
spirit  of  a  great  orator.  The  universal  testimony  of  all  the 
most  competent  judges,  attests  the  excellence  of  his  trans¬ 
lation  of  the  Bible,  and  assigns  to  him,  in  the  literature  of 
his  country,  a  station  corresponding  to  that  of  the  great 
men  to  whom  James  committed  the  corresponding  office 
in  our  own. 

Bayle  has  left  to  the  friends  of  Luther  no  duty  to  perform 
in  the  defence  of  his  moral  character,  but  that  of  appealing 
to  the  unanswerable  reply  which  his  Dictionary  contains 
to  the  charges  preferred  against  the  Reformer  by  his  ene¬ 
mies.  One  unhappy  exception  is  to  be  made.  It  is  im¬ 
possible  to  read  without  pain  the  names  of  Luther,  Me- 
lancthon,  and  Bucer,  amongst  the  subscribers  to  the  address 
to  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  on  the  subject  of  his  intended 
polygamy.  Those  great  but  fallible  men  remind  his  High¬ 
ness  of  the  distinction  between  universal  laws  and  such  as 
admit  of  dispensation  in  particular  cases.  They  cannot 
publicly  sanction  polygamy.  But  his  Highness  is  of  a 
peculiar  constitution,  and  is  exhorted  seriously  to  examine 
all  the  considerations  laid  before  him;  yet,  if  he  is  abso¬ 
lutely  resolved  to  marry  a  second  time,  it  is  their  opinion 
that  he  should  do  so  as  secretly  as  possible!  Fearful  is 
the  energy  with  which  the  “Eagle  of  Meaux”  pounces  on 
this  fatal  error, — tearing  to  pieces  the  flimsy  pretexts  al¬ 
leged  in  defence  of  such  an  evasion  of  the  Christian  code,, 
The  charge  admits  of  no  defence.  To  the  inference  drawn 
from  it  against  the  Reformer’s  doctrine,  every  Protestant 
has  a  conclusive  answer.  Whether  in  faith  or  in  practice, 
he  acknowledges  no  infallible  Head  but  one. 

But  we  have  wandered  far  and  wide  from  our  proper 
subject.  Where,  all  this  while,  is  the  story  of  Luther’s 


148 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


education,  of  his  visit  to  Rome,  of  the  sale  of  indulgences, 
of  the  denunciations  of  Tetzel,  of  the  controversy  with  Ec- 
cius,  the  Diets  of  Worms  and  Augsburg,  the  citations  be¬ 
fore  Cajetan  and  Charles,  the  papal  excommunication,  and 
the  appeal  to  a  general  council?  These,  and  many  other 
of  the  most  momentous  incidents  of  the  Reformer’s  life, 
are  recorded  in  M.  D’Aubigne’s  work,  from  which  our  at¬ 
tention  has  been  diverted  by  matters  of  less  account,  but 
perhaps  a  little  less  familiar.  It  would  be  unpardonable  to 
dismiss  such  a  work,  with  a  merely  ceremonious  notice. 
The  absolute  merit  of  this  life  of  Martin  Luther  is  great, 
but  the  comparative  value  far  greater.  In  the  English  lan¬ 
guage,  it  has  no  competitor;  and  though  Melancthon  him¬ 
self  was  the  biographer  of  his  friend,  we  believe  that  no 
foreign  tongue  contains  so  complete  and  impressive  a  nar¬ 
rative  of  these  events.  It  is  true  that  M.  D’Aubigne  nei¬ 
ther  deserves  nor  claims  a  place  amongst  those  historians, 
usually  distinguished  as  philosophical.  He  does  not  as¬ 
pire  to  illustrate  the  principles  which  determine  or  per¬ 
vade  the  character,  the  policy,  or  the  institutions  of  man¬ 
kind.  He  arms  himself  with  no  dispassionate  skepticism, 
and  scarcely  affects  to  be  impartial.  To  tell  his  tale  co¬ 
piously  and  clearly,  is  the  one  object  of  his  literary  ambi¬ 
tion.  To  exhibit  the  actors  on  the  scene  of  life,  as  the 
free  but  unconscious  agents  of  the  Divine  Will,  is  the 
higher  design  with  which  he  writes,  to  trace  the  myste¬ 
rious  intervention  of  Providence  in  reforming  the  errors 
and  abuses  of  the  Christian  Church  is  his  immediate  end; 
and  to  exalt  the  name  of  Luther,  his  labour  of  love.  These 
purposes,  as  far  as  they  are  attainable,  are  effectually  at¬ 
tained.  M.  D’Aubigne  is  a  Protestant  of  the  original 
stamp,  and  a  Biographer  of  the  old  fashion; — not  a  calm, 
candid,  discriminating  weigher  and  measurer  of  a  great 
man’s  parts,  but  a  warm-hearted  champion  of  his  glory, 
and  a  resolute  apologist  even  for  his  errors; — ready  to  do 
battle  in  his  cause  with  all  who  shall  impugn  or  derogate 
from  his  fame.  His  book  is  conceived  in  the  spirit,  and 
executed  with  all  the  vigour,  of  Dr.  M‘Crie’s  “Life  of 
Knox.”  He  has  all  our  lamented  countryman’s  sincerity, 
all  his  deep  research,  more  skill  in  composition,  and  a 
greater  mastery  of  subordinate  details;  along  with  the  same 
inestimable  faculty  of  carrying  on  his  story  from  one  stage 
to  another,  with  an  interest  which  never  subsides,  and  a 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION.  149 

vivacity  which  knows  no  intermission.  If  he  displays  no 
familiarity  with  the  moral  sciences,  he  is  no  mean  proficient 
in  that  art  which  reaches  to  perfection  only  in  the  Drama 
or  the  Romance.  This  is  not  the  talent  of  inventing,  but 
the  gift  of  discerning,  incidents  which  impart  life  and  ani¬ 
mation  to  narrative.  For  M.  D’Aubigne  is  a  writer  of 
scrupulous  veracity.  He  is  at  least  an  honest  guide,  though 
his  prepossessions  may  be  too  strong  to  render  him  worthy 
of  implicit  confidence.  They  are  such,  however,  as  to  make 
him  the  uncompromising  and  devoted  advocate  of  those 
cardinal  tenets  on  which  Luther  erected  the  edifice  of  the 
Reformation.  To  the  one  great  article  on  which  the  Re¬ 
former  assailed  the  Papacy,  the  eye  of  the  biographer  is 
directed  with  scarcely  less  intentness.  To  this  every 
other  truth  is  viewed  as  subordinate  and  secondary;  and  al¬ 
though,  on  this  favourite  point  of  doctrine  M.  D’Aubigne’s 
meaning  is  too  often  obscured  by  declamation,  yet  must 
he  be  hailed  by  every  genuine  friend  of  the  reformation, 
as  having  raised  a  powerful  voice  in  favour  of  one  of  those 
fundamental  truths  which,  so  long  as  they  are  faithfully 
taught  and  diligently  observed,  will  continue  to  form  the  great 
bulwarks  of  Christendom  against  the  overweening  estimate, 
and  the  despotic  use,  of  human  authority,  in  opposition  to 
the  authority  of  the  Revealed  Will  of  God. 


13* 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER.* 


(Edinburgh  Review,  1839.) 


This  publication  reminds  us  of  an  oversight  in  omitting 
to  notice  the  collection  of  the  works  of  Richard  Baxter, 
edited  in  the  year  1830  by  Mr.  Orme.  It  was,  in  legal 
phrase,  a  demand  for  judgment,  in  the  appeal  of  the  great 
Nonconformist  to  the  ultimate  tribunal  of  posterity,  from 
the  censures  of  his  own  age,  on  himself  and  his  writings. 
We  think  that  the  decision  was  substantially  right,  and 
that,  on  the  whole,  it  must  be  affirmed.  Right  it  was,  be¬ 
yond  all  doubt,  in  so  far  as  it  assigned  to  him  an  elevated 
rank  amongst  those,  who,  taking  the  spiritual  improvement 
of  mankind  for  their  province,  have  found  there  at  once 
the  motive  and  the  reward  for  labours  beneath  which,  un¬ 
less  sustained  by  that  holy  impulse,  the  utmost  powers  of 
our  frail  nature  must  have  prematurely  fainted. 

About  the  time  when  the  high-born  guests  of  Whitehall 
were  celebrating  the  nuptial  revels  of  Elizabeth  and  the 
Elector  Palatine,  and  the  visiters  of  low  degree  were  de¬ 
fraying  the  cost  by  the  purchase  of  titles  and  monopolies, 
there  was  living  at  the  pleasant  village  of  Eton  Constan¬ 
tine  between  Wrekin  Hill  and  the  Severn,  a  substantial 
yeoman,  incurious  alike  about  the  politics  of  the  empire 
and  the  wants  of  the  exchequer.  Yet  was  he  not  without 
his  vexations.  On  the  green  before  his  door,  a  Maypole, 
hung  with  garlands,  allured  the  retiring  congregation  to 
dance  out  the  Sunday  afternoon  to  the  sound  of  fife  and  ta¬ 
blet,  while  he,  intent  on  the  study  of  the  sacred  volume, 
was  greeted  with  no  better  names  than  Puritan,  Precisian, 
and  Hypocrite.  If  he  bent  his  steps  to  the  parish  church, 
venerable  as  it  was,  and  picturesque,  in  contempt  of  all 

*  The  Practical  Works  of  Richard  Baxter,  with  a  Preface,  giving 
some  Account  of  the  Author,  and  of  this  Edition  of  his  Practical 
Works;  and  an  Essay  on  his  Genius,  Works  and  Times.  4  vols. 
8vo.  London,  1838. 


T.TEE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


151 


styles  and  orders  of  architecture,  his  case  was  not  much 
mended.  The  aged  and  purblind  incumbent  executed  his 
weekly  task  with  the  aid  of  strange  associates.  One  of 
them  laid  aside  the  flail,  and  another  the  thimble,  to  mount 
the  reading  desk.  To  these  succeeded  “the  excellentest 
stage  player  in  all  the  country,  and  a  good  gamester,  and 
a  good  fellow.”  This  worthy  having  received  Holy  Or¬ 
ders,  forged  the  like  for  a  neighbour’s  son,  who,  on  the 
strength  of  that  title  officiated  in  the  pulpit  and  at  the  altar. 
Next  in  this  goodly  list  came  an  attorney’s  clerk,  who  had 
“  tippled  himself  into  so  great  poverty,”  that  he  had  no 
other  way  to  live  but  by  assuming  the  pastoral  care  of 
the  flock  at  Eton  Constantine.  Time  out  of  mind,  the 
curate  had  been  ex  officio  the  depository  of  the  secular,  as 
well  as  of  the  sacred  literature  of  the  parish;  and  to  these 
learned  persons  our  yeoman  was  therefore  fain  to  commit 
the  education  of  his  only  son  and  namesake,  Richard  Bax¬ 
ter. 

Such,  from  his  tenth  to  his  sixteenth  year,  were  the 
teachers  of  the  most  voluminous  theological  writer  in  the 
English  language.  Of  that  period  of  his  life,  the  only  in¬ 
cidents  which  can  now  be  ascertained  are  that  his  love  of 
apples  was  inordinate,  and  that  on  the  subject  of  robbing 
orchards,  he  held,  in  practice  at  least,  the  doctrines  handed 
down  amongst  schoolboys  by  an  unbroken  tradition.  Al¬ 
most  as  barren  is  the  only  extant  record  of  the  three  re¬ 
maining  years  of  his  pupilage.  They  were  spent  at  the 
endowed  school  at  Wroxeter,  which  he  quitted  at  the  age 
of  nineteen,  destitute  of  all  mathematical  and  physical 
science — ignorant  of  Hebrew — a  mere  smatterer  in  Greek, 
and  possessed  of  as  much  Latin  as  enabled  him  in  after  life 
to  use  it  with  reckless  facility.  Yet  a  mind  so  prolific, 
and  which  yielded  such  early  fruits,  could  not  advance  to 
manhood  without  much  well-directed  culture.  The  Bible 
which  lay  on  his  father’s  table,  formed  the  whole  of  the 
good  man’s  library,  and  would  have  been  ill-exchanged  for 
the  treasures  of  the  Vatican.  He  had  been  no  stranger  to 
the  cares,  nor  indeed  to  the  disorders  of  life;  and,  as  his 
strength  declined,  it  was  his  delight  to  inculcate  on  his  in¬ 
quisitive  boy  the  lessons  which  inspired  wisdom  teaches 
most  persuasively,  when  illustrated  by  dear-bought  expe¬ 
rience,  and  enforced  by  parental  love.  For  the  mental  in¬ 
firmities  of  the  son  no  better  discipline  could  have  been 


152 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


found.  A  pyrrhonist  of  nature’s  making,  his  threescore 
years  and  ten  might  have  been  exhausted  in  a  fruitless 
struggle  to  adjudicate  between  antagonist  theories,  if  his 
mind  had  not  thus  been  subjugated  to  the  supreme  authority 
of  Holy  Writ,  by  an  influence  coeval  with  the  first  dawn 
of  reason,  and  associated  indissolubly  with  his  earliest  and 
most  enduring  affections.  It  is  neither  the  wise  nor  the 
good  by  whom  the  patrimony  of  opinion  is  most  lightly  re¬ 
garded.  Such  is  the  condition  of  our  existence,  that  beyond 
the  precincts  of  abstract  science,  we  must  take  much  for 
granted,  if  we  would  make  any  advance  in  knowledge,  or 
live  to  any  useful  end.  Our  hereditary  prepossessions 
must  not  only  precede  our  acquired  judgments,  but  must 
conduct  us  to  them.  To  begin  by  questioning  every  thing, 
is  to  end  by  answering  nothing;  and  a  premature  revolt 
from  human  authority  is  but  an  incipient  rebellion  against 
conscience,  reason,  and  truth.  Launched  into  the  ocean  of 
speculative  inquiry,  without  the  anchorage  of  parental  in¬ 
struction  and  filial  reverence,  Baxter  would  have  been 
drawn  by  his  constitutional  tendencies  into  that  skeptical 
philosophy,  through  the  long  annals  of  which  no  single 
name  is  to  be  found  to  which  the  gratitude  of  mankind  has 
been  yielded,  or  is  justly  due.  He  had  much  in  common 
with  the  most  eminent  doctors  of  that  school— -the  animal 
frame  characterized  by  sluggish  appetites,  languid  pas¬ 
sions,  and  great  nervous  energy;  the  intellectual  nature 
distinguished  by  subtlety  to  seize  distinctions  more  than 
by  wit  to  detect  analogies;  by  the  power  to  dive,  instead 
of  the  faculty  to  soar;  by  skill  to  analyze  subjective  truths, 
rather  than  by  ability  to  combine  them  with  each  other  and 
with  objective  realities.  But  what  was  wanting  in  his 
sensitive,  and  deficient  in  his  intellectual  structure,  was 
balanced  and  corrected  by  the  spiritual  elevation  of  his 
mind.  If  not  enamoured  of  the  beautiful,  nor  conversant 
with  the  ideal,  nor  able  to  grasp  the  comprehensive  and  the 
abstract,  he  enjoyed  that  clear  mental  vision  which  attends 
on  moral  purity — the  rectitude  of  judgment  which  rewards 
the  subjection  of  the  will  to  the  reason — the  loftiness  of 
thought  awakened  by  habitual  communion  with  the  source 
of  light — and  the  earnest  stability  of  purpose  inseparable 
from  the  predominance  of  the  social  above  the  selfish  affec¬ 
tions.  Skepticism  and  devotion  were  the  conflicting  ele¬ 
ments  of  his  internal  life;  but  the  radiance  from  above  gra- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


153 


dually  dispersed  the  vapours  from  beneath,  and,  through 
half  a  century  of  pain  and  strife,  and  agitation,  he  enjoyed 
that  settled  tranquillity  which  no  efforts  merely  intellectual 
can  attain,  nor  any  speculative  doubts  destroy, — the  peace, 
of  which  it  is  said,  that  it  passes  understanding. 

Baxter  was  born  in  1615,  and  consequently  attained  his 
early  manhood  amidst  events  ominous  of  approaching  re¬ 
volutions.  Deep  and  latent  as  are  the  ultimate  causes  of 
the  continued  existence  of  Episcopacy  in  England,  nothing 
can  be  less  recondite  than  the  human  agency  employed  in 
working  out  that  result.  Nursed  by  the  Tudors,  adopted 
by  the  Stuarts,  and  wedded  in  her  youth  to  a  powerful 
aristocracy,  the  Anglican  Church  retains  the  indelible  stamp 
of  these  early  alliances.  To  the  great,  the  learned,  and  the 
worldly  wise,  it  has  for  three  centuries  afforded  a  resting- 
place  and  a  refuge.  But  a  long  interval  had  elapsed  before 
the  national  temples  and  hierarchy  w'ere  consecrated  to  the 
nobler  end  of  enlightening  the  ignorant,  and  administering 
comfort  to  the  poor.  Rich  beyond  all  Protestant  rivalry  in 
sacred  literature,  the  Church  of  England,  from  the  days  of 
Parker  to  those  of  Laud,  had  scarcely  produced  any  one 
considerable  work  of  popular  instruction.  The  pastoral 
care  which  Burnett  depicted,  in  the  reign  of  William  and 
Mary,  was  at  that  time  a  vision  which,  though  since  nobly 
fulfilled,  no  past  experience  had  realized.  Till  a  much 
later  time,  the  alphabet  was  among  the  mysteries  which 
the  English  church  concealed  from  her  catechumens.  There 
is  no  parallel  in  the  annals  of  any  other  Protestant  State, 
of  so  wonderful  a  concentration,  and  so  imperfect  a  diffu¬ 
sion  of  learning  and  genius,  of  piety  and  zeal.  The  reigns 
of  Whitgift,  Bancroft,  and  Laud,  were  unmolested  by  cares 
so  rude  as  those  of  evangelizing  the  artisans  and  peasantry. 
Jewel  and  Bull,  Hall  and  Donne,  Hooker  and  Taylor, 
lived  and  wrote  for  their  peers,  and  for  future  ages,  but  not 
for  the  commonalty  of  their  own.  Yet  w'as  not  Christianity 
bereft  in  England  of  her  distinctive  and  glorious  privilege. 
It  was  still  the  religion  of  the  poor.  Amidst  persecution, 
contempt,  and  penury,  the  Puritans  had  toiled  and  suffered, 
and  had,  not  rarely,  died  in  their  service.  Thus  in  every 
city,  and  almost  in  every  village,  they  who  had  eyes  to 
see,  and  ears  to  hear,  might,  at  the  commencement  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  perceive  the  harbingers  of  the  coming 
tempest.  Thoughtful  and  resolute  men  had  transferred  the 


154 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


allegiance  of  the  heart  from  their  legitimate,  to  their  chosen 
leaders;  while,  unconscious  of  their  clanger,  the  ruling  were 
straining  the  bonds  of  authority,  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
decrease  of  their  number  and  their  strength.  It  was  when 
the  future  pastors  of  New  England  were  training  men  to  a 
generous  contempt  of  all  sublunary  interest  for  conscience’ 
sake,  that  Laud,  not  content  to  be  terrible  to  the  founders 
of  Connecticut  and  New  England,  braved  an  enmity  far 
more  to  be  dreaded  than  theirs.  With  a  view  to  the  ends 
to  which  his  life  was  devoted,  his  truth  and  courage  would 
have  been  well  exchanged  for  the  wily  and  time-serving 
genius  of  Williams.  Supported  by  Heylin,  Cosins,  Mon¬ 
tague,  and  many  others,  who  adopted  or  exaggerated  his 
own  opinions,  he  precipitated  the  temporary  overthrow  of 
a  Church,  in  harmony  with  the  character,  and  strong  in  the 
affections  of  the  people;  upheld  by  a  long  line  of  illustrious 
names;  connected  with  the  whole  aristocracy  of  the  realm; 
and  enthusiastically  defended  by  the  Sovereign. 

Baxter’s  theological  studies  were  commenced  during  these 
tumults,  and  were  insensibly  biassed  by  them.  The  ecclesi¬ 
astical  polity  had  reconciled  him  to  Episcopal  ordination;  but 
as  he  read,  and  listened,  and  observed  his  attachment  to  the 
established  ritual  and  discipline  progressively  declined. 
He  began  by  rejecting  the  practice  of  indiscriminate  com¬ 
munion.  He  was  dissatisfied  with  the  compulsory  sub¬ 
scription  to  articles,  and  the  baptismal  cross.  “Deeper 
thoughts  on  the  point  of  Episcopacy”  were  suggested  to 
him  by  the  et.  cetera  oath;  and  these  reflections  soon  ren¬ 
dered  him  an  irreconcilable  adversary  to  the  “  English 
Diocesan  frame.”  He  distributed  the  sacred  elements  to 
those  who  would  not  kneel  to  receive  them,  and  religiously 
abjured  the  surplice.  Thus  ripe  for  spiritual  censures,  and 
prepared  to  endure  them,  he  was  rescued  from  the  danger 
he  had  braved  by  the  demon  of  civil  strife.  The  Scots  in 
the  north,  and  the  Parliament  in  the  south,  summoned 
Charles  and  Laud  to  more  serious  cares  than  those  of  en¬ 
forcing  conformity,  and  left  Baxter  free  to  enlarge  and  to 
propagate  his  discoveries. 

With  liberty  of  speech  and  action,  his  mind  was  visited 
by  a  corresponding  audacity  of  thought.  Was  there  indeed 
a  future  life? — Was  the  soul  of  man  immortal? — Were  the 
Scriptures  true? — were  the  questions  which  now  assaulted 
and  perplexed  him.  They  came  not  as  vexing  and  impor- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


155 


tunate  suggestions,  but  “under  pretence  of  sober  reason,” 
and  all  the  resources  of  his  understanding  were  summoned 
to  resist  the  tempter.  Self-deception  was  abhorrent  from 
his  nature.  He  feared  the  face  of  no  speculative  difficulty. 
Dark  as  were  the  shapes  which  crossed  his  path,  they  must 
be  closely  questioned;  and  gloomy  as  was  the  abyss  to 
which  they  led,  it  was  to  be  unhesitatingly  explored.  The 
result  needs  not  to  be  stated.  From  a  long  and  painful 
conflict  he  emerged  victorious,  but  not  without  bearing  to 
the  grave  some  scars  to  mark  the  severity  of  the  struggle. 
No  man  was  ever  blessed  with  more  profound  convictions; 
but  so  vast  and  elaborate  was  the  basis  of  argumentation 
on  which  they  rested,  that  to  re-examine  the  texture,  and 
ascertain  the  coherence  of  the  materials  of  which  it  was 
wrought,  formed  the  still  recurring  labour  of  his  whole 
future  life. 

While  the  recluse  is  engulfed  in  the  vortices  of  meta¬ 
physics,  the  victims  of  passion  are  still  urged  forward  in 
their  wild  career  of  guilt  and  misery.  From  the  transcen¬ 
dental  labyrinths  through  which  Baxter  was  winding  his 
solitary  and  painful  way,  the  war  recalled  him  to  the  stern 
realities  of  life.  In  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  earlier 
military  operations,  Coventry  had  become  a'city  of  refuge 
to  him,  and  to  a  large  body  of  his  clerical  brethren.  They 
believed,  in  the  simplicity  of  their  hearts,  that  Essex, 
Waller,  and  Cromwell,  were  fighting  the  battles  of  Charles, 
and  that  their  real  object  was  to  rescue  the  King  from  the 
thraldom  of  the  Malignants,  and  the  Church  from  the  tyran¬ 
ny  of  the  Prelatists,  “  We  kept,”  says  Baxter,  speaking 
of  himself  and  his  associates,  “to  our  old  principles,  and 
thought  all  others  had  done  so  too,  except  a  very  few  in¬ 
considerable  persons.  We  were  unfeignedly  for  King  and 
Parliament.  We  believed  that  the  war  was  only  to  save 
the  Parliament  and  kingdom  from  the  Papists  and  delin¬ 
quents,  and  to  remove  the  dividers,  that  the  King  might 
again  return  to  his  Parliament,  and  that  no  changes  might 
be  made  in  religion,  but  by  the  laws  which  had  his  free 
consent.  We  took  the  true  happiness  of  King  and  people, 
Church  and  State,  to  be  our  end,  and  so  we  understood 
the  covenant,  engaging  both  against  Papists  and  schisma¬ 
tics;  and  when  the  Court  News-Book  told  the  world  of  the 
swarms  of  Anabaptists  in  our  armies,  we  thought  it  had 
been  a  mere  lie,  because  it  was  not  so  with  us.” 


156 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


Ontology  and  scholastic  divinity  have  their  charms,  and 
never  did  man  confess  them  more  than  Richard  Baxter. 
But  the  pulse  must  beat  languidly  indeed,  when  the  superior 
fascination  of  the  “tented  field  ”  is  not  acknowledged;  nor 
should  it  derogate  from  the  reverence  which  attends  his 
name,  to  admit  that  he  felt  and  indulged  this  universal  ex¬ 
citement.  Slipping  away  from  Durandus,  Bradwardine, 
Suarez,  and  Ariminensis,  he  visited  Edgehill  and  Naseby 
while  the  Parliamentary  armies  still  occupied  the  ground 
on  which  they  had  fought.  He  found  the  conquerors  armed 
cap-a-pie  for  spiritual,  as  well  as  carnal  combats;  and  to 
convert  the  troops  from  their  theological  errors,  was  the 
duty  which,  he  was  assured,  had  been  committed  to  him 
by  Providence.  Becoming  accordingly  chaplain  to  Whal- 
ley’s  regiment,  he  witnessed  in  that  capacity  many  a  skir¬ 
mish,  and  was  present  at  the  sieges  of  Bristol,  Sherborne, 
and  Worcester.  Rupert  and  Goring  proved  less  stubborn 
antagonists  than  the  seekers  and  levellers  of  the  Lieutenant- 
General’s  camp;  and  Baxter  was  “  still  employed  in  preach¬ 
ing,  conferring,  and  disputing  against  their  confounding 
errors.”  The  soldiers  discoursed  as  earnestly,  and  even 
published  pamphlets  as  copiously  as  himself.  After  many 
an  affair  of  posts,  the  hostile  parties  at  length  engaged  in  a 
pitched  battle  at  Amersham  in  Buckinghamshire.  “  When 
the  public  talking-day  came,”  says  Baxter,  “I  took  the 
reading  pew,  and  Pitchford’s  cornet  and  troopers  took  the 
gallery.  There  did  the  leader  of  the  Chesham  men  begin, 
and  afterwards  Pitchford’s  soldiers  set  in;  and  I  alone  dis¬ 
puted  against  them  from  morning  until  almost  night.”  Too 
old  a  campaigner  to  retire  from  the  field  in  the  presence  of 
his  enemy,  “  he  staid  it  out  till  they  first  rose  and  went 
away.”  The  honours  of  the  day  were,  however,  disputed. 
In  the  strange  book  published  by  Edwards,  under  his  ap¬ 
propriate  title  of  “  Gangraena,”  the  fortunes  of  the  field 
were  chronicled;  and  there,  as  we  are  informed  by  Baxter 
himself,  may  be  read  “  the  abundance  of  nonsense  uttered 
on  the  occasion.” 

Cromwell  regarded  these  polemics  with  ill-disguised 
aversion,  and  probably  with  secret  contempt.  He  had 
given  Baxter  but  a  cold  welcome  to  the  army.  “He  would 
not  dispute  with  me  at  all,”  is  a  fact  related  by  the  good 
man  with  evident  surprise;  “but  he  would  in  good  dis¬ 
course  very  fluently  pour  out  himself  in  the  extolling  of 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


157 


free  grace,  which  was  savoury  to  those  that  had  right  prin¬ 
ciples,  though  he  had  some  misunderstanding  of  free  grace 
himself.  He  was  a  man  of  excellent  natural  parts  for  af¬ 
fection  and  oratory,  but  not  well  seen  in  the  principles  of 
his  religion;  of  a  sanguine  complexion,  naturally  of  such  a 
vivacity,  hilarity,  and  alacrity  as  another  man  hath  when 
he  hath  drunken  a  cup  too  much;  but  naturally,  also,  so  far 
from  humble  thoughts  of  himself,  that  it  was  his  ruin.” 
The  Protector  had  surrendered  his  powerful  mind  to  the 
religious  fashions  of  his  times,  and  never  found  the  leisure 
or  the  inclination  for  deep  inquiry  into  a  subject  on  which 
it  was  enough  for  his  purposes  to  excel  in  fluent  and  sa¬ 
voury  discourse.  Among  those  purposes,  to  obtain  the 
approbation  of  his  own  conscience  was  not  the  least  sin¬ 
cere.  His  devotion  was  ardent,  and  his  piety  genuine. 
But  the  alliance  between  habits  of  criminal  self-indulgence, 
and  a  certain  kind  of  theopathy,  is  but  too  ordinary  a  phe¬ 
nomenon.  That  at  each  step  of  his  progress,  Cromwell 
should  have  been  deceived  and  sustained  by  some  sophis¬ 
try,  is  the  less  wonderful,  since  even  now,  in  retracing  his 
course,  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  the  point  at  which  he  first 
quilted  the  straight  path  of  duty,  or  to  discover  what  escape 
was  at  length  open  to  him  from  the  web  in  which  he  had 
become  involved.  There  have  been  many  worse,  and  few 
greater  men.  Yet  to  vindicate  his  name  from  the  con¬ 
demnation  which  rests  upon  it,  would  be  to  confound  the 
distinctions  of  good  and  evil  as  he  did,  without  the  apology 
of  being  tempted  as  he  was. 

Baxter  was  too  profound  a  moralist  to  be  dazzled  by  the 
triumph  of  bad  men,  however  specious  their  virtues;  or  to 
affect  any  complacency  towards  a  bad  cause,  though  in¬ 
debted  to  it  for  the  only  period  of  serenity  which  it  ever 
was  his  lot  to  enjoy.  He  had  ministered  to  the  forces  of 
the  Parliamentary  general,  but  abhorred  the  regicide  and 
usurper.  In  his  zeal  for  the  ancient  constitution,  he  had 
meditated  a  scheme  for  detaching  his  own  regiment,  and 
ultimately  all  the  generals  of  the  army,  from  their  leader. 
They  were  first  to  be  undermined  by  a  course  of  logic,  and 
then  blown  up  by  the  eloquence  of  the  preacher.  This  pro¬ 
found  device  in  the  science  of  theological  engineering  would 
have  been  counterworked  by  the  Lieutenant-General,  had 
he  detected  it,  by  methods  somewhat  less  subtle,  but  cer¬ 
tainly  not  less  effective.  A  fortunate  illness  defeated  the 
14 


258 


STEPHENS  MISCELLANIES. 


formidable  conspiracy,  and  restored  the  projector  to  his 
pastoral  duties  and  to  peace.  Even  then,  his  voice  was 
publicly  raised  against  “the  treason,  rebellion,  perfidious¬ 
ness,  and  hypocrisy”  of  Cromwell,  who  probably  never 
heard,  and  certainly  never  heeded,  the  denunciations  of  his 
former  chaplain. 

Baxter  enjoyed  the  esteem  which  he  would  not  repay. 
He  was  once  invited  by  the  Protector  to  preach  at  court. 
Sermons  in  those  days  were  very  serious  things — point- 
blank  shots  at  the  bosoms  of  the  auditory;  and  Cromwell 
was  not  a  man  to  escape  or  to  fear  the  heaviest  pulpit  ord¬ 
nance  which  could  be  brought  to  bear  on  him.  From 
the  many  vulnerable  points  of  attack,  the  preacher  selected 
the  crying  sin  of  encouraging  sectaries.  Not  satisfied  with 
the  errors  of  his  own  days,  the  great  Captain  had  antici¬ 
pated  those  of  a  later  age,  and  had  asserted  in  their  utmost 
extent  the  dangerous  principles  of  religious  liberty.  This 
latitudinarian  doctrine  may  have  been  suggested  by  motives 
merely  selfish;  and  Baxter,  at  least,  could  acknowledge  no 
deeper  wisdom  in  which  such  an  innovation  could  have 
had  its  birth.  St.  Paul  was,  therefore,  made  to  testify 
“against  the  sin  committed  by  politicians,  in  maintaining 
divisions  for  their  own  ends,  that  they  might  fish  in  trou¬ 
bled  waters.”  He  who  now  occupied  the  throne  of  the 
Stuarts  claimed  one  prerogative  to  which  even  they  had 
never  aspired.  It  was  that  of  controverting  the  argumen¬ 
tation  of  the  pulpit.  His  zeal  for  the  conversion  of  his 
monitor  appears  to  have  been  exceedingly  ardent.  Having 
summoned  him  to  his  presence,  “he  began  by  a  long  te¬ 
dious  speech  to  me,”  (the  narrative  is  Baxter’s,)  “of  God’s 
providence  in  the  change  of  the  government,  and  how  God 
had  owned  it,  and  what  great  things  had  been  done  at  home 
and  abroad,  in  the  peace  with  Spain  and  Holland,  &c. 
When  he  had  wearied  us  all  with  speaking  thus  slowly 
for  about  an  hour,  I  told  him  it  was  too  great  a  condescen¬ 
sion  to  acquaint  me  so  fully  with  all  these  matters,  which 
were  above  me;  but  I  told  him  that  we  took  our  ancient 
monarchy  to  be  a  blessing,  and  not  an  evil  to  the  land;  and 
humbly  craved  his  patience  that  I  might  ask  him  how 
England  had  ever  forfeited  that  blessing,  and  unto  whom 
that  forfeiture  was  made.  Upon  that  question  he  was 
awakened  into  some  passion,  and  then  told  me  that  it  was 
no  forfeiture,  but  God  had  changed  it  as  pleased  him;  and 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


159 


then  he  let  fly  at  the  Parliament  which  thwarted  hfln,  and 
especially  by  name  at  four  or  five  of  those  members  who 
were  my  chief  acquaintances,  whom  I  presumed  to  defend 
against  his  passion,  and  thus  four  or  five  hours  were 
spent.” 

During  this  singular  dialogue,  Lambert  fell  asleep,  an 
indecorum  which,  in  the  court  of  an  hereditary  monarch, 
would  have  been  fatal  to  the  prospects  of  the  transgressor. 
But  the  drowsiness  of  his  old  comrade  was  more  tolerable 
to  Cromwell  than  the  pertinacity  of  his  former  chaplain, 
against  whom  he  a  second  time  directed  the  artillery  of  his 
logic.  On  this  occasion  almost  all  the  Privy  Council  were 
present;  liberty  of  conscience  being  the  thesis,  Baxter  the 
respondent,  and  Cromwell  assuming  to  himself  the  double 
office  of  opponent  and  moderator.  “After  another  slow, 
tedious  speech  of  his,  I  told  him,”  says  the  auto-biogra- 
pher,  “a  little  of  my  judgment,  and  when  two  of  his  com¬ 
pany  had  spun  out  a  great  deal  more  of  the  time  in  such 
like  tedious,  but  more  ignorant  speeches,  I  told  him,  that 
if  he  would  be  at  the  labour  to  read  it,  I  could  tell  him 
more  of  my  mind  in  writing  two  sheets  than  in  that  way 
of  speaking  many  days.  He  received  the  paper  afterwards, 
but  I  scarcely  believe  that  he  ever  read  it.  I  saw  that  what 
he  learnt  must  be  from  himself,  being  more  disposed  to 
speak  many  hours  than  hear  one,  and  little  heeding  what 
another  said  when  he  had  spoken  himself,” 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  faults,  or  whatever  the 
motives  of  the  Protector,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  under 
his  sway  England  witnessed  a  diffusion,  till  then  unknown, 
of  the  purest  influence  of  genuine  religious  principles. 
The  popular  historians  of  that  period,  from  various  mo¬ 
tives,  have  disguised  or  misrepresented  the  fact;  and  they 
who  derive  their  views  on  this  subject  from  Clarendon  or 
from  Hudibras,  mistake  a  caricature  for  a  genuine  por¬ 
trait.  To  this  result,  no  single  man  contributed  more 
largely  than  Baxter  himself,  by  his  writings  and  his  pas¬ 
toral  labours.  His  residence  at  Kidderminster  during  the 
whole  of  the  Protectorate  was  the  sabbath  of  his  life ;  the 
interval  in  which  his  mind  enjoyed  the  only  repose  of 
which  it  was  capable,  in  labours  of  love,  prompted  by  a 
willing  heart,  and  unimpeded  by  a  contentious  world. 

Good  Protestants  hold,  that  the  supreme  Head  of  the 
Church  reserves  to  himself  alone  to  mediate  and  to  reign, 


160 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


as  his^hcommunicable  attributes;  and  that  to  teach  and  to  mi¬ 
nister  are  the  only  offices  he  has  delegated  to  the  pastors  of 
his  flock.  Wisdom  to  scale  the  heights  of  contemplation, 
love  to  explore  the  depths  of  wretchedness — a  science  and 
a  servitude  inseparably  combined; — the  one  investigating 
the  relations  between  man  and  his  Creator,  the  other  busied 
in  the  cares  of  a  self-denying  philanthropy — such,  at  least 
in  theory,  are  the  endowments  of  that  sacred  institution, 
which,  first  established  by  the  fishermen  of  Galilee,  has 
been  ever  since  maintained  throughout  the  Christian  com¬ 
monwealth.  A  priesthood,  of  which  all  the  members 
should  be  animated  with  this  spirit,  may  be  expected  when 
angels  shall  resume  their  visits  to  our  earth,  and  not  till 
then.  Human  agency,  even  when  employed  to  distribute 
the  best  gifts  of  Providence  to  man,  must  still  bear  the 
impress  of  human  guilt  and  frailty.  But  if  there  be  one 
object  in  this  fallen  world,  to  which  the  eye,  jaded  by  its 
pageantries  and  its  gloom,  continually  turns  with  renovated 
hope,  it  is  to  an  alliance,  such  as  that  which  bound  together 
Richard  Baxter  and  the  people  among  whom  he  dwelt. 
He,  a  poor  man,  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice  in 
mental  resources,  consecrating  alike  his  poverty  and  his 
wealth  to  their  service;  ever  present  to  guide,  to  soothe,  to 
encourage,  and,  when  necessary,  to  rebuke ;  shrinking 
from  no  aspect  of  misery,  however  repulsive,  nor  from  the 
most  loathsome  forms  of  guilt  which  he  might  hope  to  re¬ 
claim  ; — the  instructer,  at  once,  and  the  physician,  the 
almoner  and  the  friend,  of  his  congregation.  They,  re¬ 
paying  his  labours  of  love  with  untutored  reverence;  awed 
by  his  reproofs,  and  rejoicing  in  his  smile;  taught  by  him 
to  discharge  the  most  abject  duties,  and  to  endure  the  most 
pressing  evils  of  life,  as  a  daily  tribute  to  their  Divine  be¬ 
nefactor;  incurious  of  the  novelties  of  their  controversial 
age,  but  meekly  thronging  the  altar  from  which  he  dispensed 
the  symbols  of  their  mystical  union  with  each  other  and 
thejr  common  Head;  and,  at. the  close  of  their  obscure, 
monotonous,  but  tranquil  course,  listening  to  the  same  pa¬ 
rental  voice,  then  subdued  to  the  gentlest  tones  of  sympa¬ 
thy,  and  telling  of  bright  hopes  and  of  a  glorious  reward. 
Little  was  there  in  common  between  Kidderminster  and 
the  “sweet  smiling”  Auburn.  Still  less  alike  were  the 
“village  preacher,”  who  “ran  his  godly  race,”  after  the 
fancy  of  Oliver  Goldsmith,  and  the  “painful  preacher,” 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


161 


whose  emaciated  form,  gaunt  visage,  and  Geneva  ffands, 
attested  the  severity  of  his  studies,  and  testified  against 
prelatic  ascendency.  Deeper  yet  the  contrast  between 
the  delicate  hues  and  fine  touches  of  the  portrait  drawn 
from  airy  imagination,  and  Baxter’s  catalogue  of  his  weekly 
catechisings,  fasts,  and  conferences :  of  his  Wednesday 
meetings  and  Thursday  disputations;  and  of  the  thirty 
helps  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  quicken  into  spiritual 
life  the  inert  mass  of  a  rude  and  vicious  population.  But, 
truth  against  fiction,  all  the  world  over,  in  the  rivalry  for 
genuine  pathos  and  real  sublimity.  Ever  new  and  charm¬ 
ing,  after  ten  thousand  repetitions,  the  plaintive,  playful, 
melodious  poetry  bears  a  comparison  to  the  homely  tale  of 
the  curate  of  Kidderminster,  like  that  of  the  tapestried  lists 
of  a  tournament  with  the  well-fought  field  of  Roncesvalles. 
Too  prolix  for  quotation,  and  perhaps  too  sacred  for  our 
immediate  purpose,  it  records  one  of  those  moral  conquests 
which  bear  their  testimony  to  the  existence  in  the  human 
heart  of  faculties  which,  even  when  most  oppressed  by  ig¬ 
norance,  or  benumbed  by  guilt,  may  yet  be  roused  to 
their  noblest  exercise,  and  disciplined  for  their  ultimate 
perfection. 

Eventful  tidings  disturbed  these  apostolical  labours,  and 
but  too  soon  proved  how  precarious  was  the  tenure  of  that 
religious  liberty  which  Baxter  at  once  enjoyed  and  con¬ 
demned.  With  the  Protectorate  it  commenced  and  ended. 
The  death  of  Oliver,  the  abdication  of  Richard,  the  revi¬ 
val  of  the  Long  Parliament,  the  reappearance  of  the  ejected 
members,  the  assembling  of  a  new  House  of  Commons 
under  the  auspices  of  Monk,  and  the  restoration  of  the 
Stuarts,  progressively  endangered,  and  at  length  subverted 
the  edifice  of  ecclesiastical  freedom,  which  the  same  strong 
hand  had  founded  and  sustained.  Yet  the  issue  for  awhile 
seemed  doubtful.  The  sectarians  overrated  their  own 
strength,  and  the  Episcopalians  exaggerated  their  own 
weakness.  Infallible  and  impeccable,  the  Church  of  Rome 
is  a  Tadmor  in  the  wilderness,  miraculously  erect  and  beau** 
tiful  in  the  midst  of  an  otherwise  universal  ruin. 

The  Church  of  England,  liable  to  err,  but  always  judg¬ 
ing  right,  capable  of  misconduct,  but  never  acting  wrong, 
is  a  still  more  stupendous  exception  to  the  weakness  and 
depravity  which  in  all  other  human  institutions  signalizes 
our  common  nature.  But  for  this  well-established  truth,  a 

14* 


162 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


hardjPskepticism  might  have  ventured  to  arraign  her  as  an 
habitual  alarmist.  If  she  is  “  in  danger”  at  this  moment, 
she  has  been  so  from  her  cradle.  Puritans  and  Presby¬ 
terians,  Arminians  and  Calvinists,  Independents  and  Me¬ 
thodists,  had  for  three  centuries  threatened  her  existence, 
when  at  last  the  matricidal  hands  of  the  metropolitan  of  all 
England,  and  of  the  prelate  of  England’s  metropolis,  were 
in  our  own  days  irreverently  laid  on  her  prebendal  stalls. 
One,  “  whose  bosom’s  lord  sits  lightly  on  his  throne,”  in 
the  presence  of  all  other  forms  of  peril,  has  on  this  last 
fearful  omen  lost  his  accustomed  fortitude;  though  even 
the  impending  overthrow  of  the  church  he  adorns,  finds 
his  wit  as  brilliant,  and  his  gaiety  as  indestructible  as  of 
yore.  What  wonder,  then,  if  the  canons  expectant  of  St. 
Paul’s  at  the  Court  of  Breda,  surveyed  from  that  Pisgah 
the  fair  land  of  promise  with  faint  misgivings,  that  the  sons 
of  Anak,  who  occupied  the  strongholds,  should  continue  to 
enjoy  the  milk  and  honey  of  their  Palestine?  Thousands 
of  intrusive  incumbents,  on  whose  heads  no  episcopal  hand 
had  been  laid,  and  whose  purity  no  surplice  had  ever  sym¬ 
bolized,  possessed  the  parsonages  and  pulpits  of  either 
episcopal  province.  A  population  had  grown  up  unbap¬ 
tized  with  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  instructed  to  repeat 
the  longer  and  shorter  catechisms  of  the  Westminster  Di¬ 
vines.  Thirty  thousand  armed  Covenanters  yielded  to 
Monk  and  his  officers  a  dubious  submission.  Cudworth 
and  Lightfoot  at  Cambridge,  Wilkins  and  Wallis  at  Oxford, 
occupied  and  adorned  the  chairs  of  the  ejected  loyalists. 
The  divine  right  of  Episcopacy  might  yet  be  controverted 
by  Baxter,  Howe,  and  Owen;  and  Smectymnus  might 
awaken  from  his  repose  in  the  persons  of  Marshall.,  Ca- 
lamy,  and  Spurstow.  Little  marvel,  that  their  eternal 
charter  inspired  a  less  exulting  faith  than  of  old  in  the 
Bishops  who  had  assembled  at  Breda;  that  Hyde  and 
Southampton  temporized;  or  that  Charles,  impatient  of  the 
Protestant  heresy  in  all  its  forms,  and  of  Christianity  itself 
in  all  its  precepts,  lent  his  royal  name  to  an  experiment  of 
which  deceit  was  the  basis,  and  persecution  the  result. 

Liberty  of  conscience,  and  a  concurrence  in  any  Act  of 
Parliament  which,  on  mature  deliberation,  should  be  of¬ 
fered  for  securing  it,  were  solemnly  promised  by  the  King, 
while  yet  uncertain  of  the  temper  of  the  Commons  he  was 
about  to  meet.  Ten  Presbyterian  ministers  were  added 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


163 


to  tlie  list  of  royal  chaplains;  and,  for  once  a  martyr 
to  the  public  good,  Charles  submitted  himself  to  the  pe¬ 
nalty  of  assisting  at  four  of  their  sermons.  That  with 
which  Baxter  greeted  him,  could  not  have  been  recited  by 
the  most  rapid  voice  in  less  than  two  hours.  It  is  a  solemn 
contrast  of  the  sensual  and  the  spiritual  life,  without  one 
courtly  phrase  to  relieve  his  censure  of  the  vices  of  the 
great.  More  soothing  sounds  were  daily  falling  on  the 
royal  ear.  The  Surplice  and  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
had  reappeared  at  the  worship  of  the  Lords  and  Commons. 
Heads  and  fellows  of  colleges  enjoyed  a  restoration  scarcely 
less  triumphant  than  that  of  their  sovereign.  Long  dor¬ 
mant  statutes,  arising  from  their  slumbers,  menaced  the 
Nonconformists;  and  the  truth  was  revealed  to  the  delighted 
hierarchy,  that  the  Church  of  England  was  still  enthroned 
in  the  affections  of  the  English  people — the  very  type  of 
their  national  character — the  reflection  of  their  calm  good 
sense — of  their  reverence  for  hoar  authority — -of  their  fas¬ 
tidious  distaste  for  whatever  is  scenic,  impassioned,  and 
self-assuming — of  their  deliberate  preference  for  solid  rea¬ 
son,  even  wdien  somewhat  dull,  to  mere  rhetoric,  however 
animated — of  their  love  for  those  grave  observances  and 
ancient  forms  which  conduct  the  mind  to  self-communion, 
and  lay  open  to  the  heart  its  long  accumulated  treasure  of 
hidden,  though  profound  emotions.  Happy  if  the  confi¬ 
dence  in  her  own  strength  excited  by  this  discovery,  had 
been  blended  either  with  the  forgiveness  and  the  love 
which  the  Gospel  teaches;  or  with  the  toleration  inculcated 
by  human  philosophy;  or  with  the  prudence  which  should 
be  derived  from  a  long  course  of  suffering!  Twenty-eight 
disgraceful  years  had  then  been  blotted  from  the  annals  of 
the  Anglican  Church,  and  perhaps  from  the  secular  history 
of  England. 

The  time  was  yet  unripe  for  avowed  retaliation,  but 
wrongs  and  indignities  such  as  those  which  the  Episcopa¬ 
lians  had  suffered,  were  neither  to  be  pardoned  nor  una¬ 
venged.  Invited  by  the  King  to  prepare  a  scheme  of  fu¬ 
ture  church  government,  Baxter  and  his  friends,  taking 
Usher’s  “Reduction  of  Episcopacy”  as  their  basis,  pre¬ 
sented  to  Charles  and  the  prelates  a  scheme  of  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  reform.  “As  to  Archbishop  Usher’s  model  of  govern¬ 
ment,”  replied  the  bishops,  “we  decline  it  as  not  consistent 
with  his  other  learned  discourses  on  the  original  of  Epis- 


164 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


eopacy  and  of  metropolitans,  nor  with  the  King’s  supre¬ 
macy  in  causes  ecclesiastical.”  “Had  you  read  Gerson, 
Bucer,  Parker,  Baynes,  Salmasius,  Blondel,  <fcc.,”  rejoined 
Baxter,  “you  would  have  seen  just  reason  given  for  our 
dissent  from  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  as  established  in 
England.  You  would  easily  grant  that  diocesses  are  too 
great,  if  you  had  ever  conscionably  tried  the  task  which 
Dr.  Hammond  describelh  as  the  bishop’s  work,  or  had  ever 
believed  Ignatius’  and  others’  ancient  descriptions  of  a 
bishop’s  church.”  Whither  this  war  of  words  was  tend¬ 
ing,  no  bystander  could  doubt.  To  maintain  the  splendour 
and  the  powers  of  Episcopacy,  to  yield  nothing,  and  yet  to 
avoid  the  appearance  of  a  direct  breach  of  the  royal  word, 
was  so  glaringly  the  object  of  the  court,  that  wilful  blind¬ 
ness  only  could  fail  to  penetrate  the  transparent  veil  of 
“  The  Declaration  ”  framed  by  Clarendon  with  all  the  as¬ 
tuteness  of  his  profession,  and  accepted  by  the  Presbyte¬ 
rians,  with  the  eagerness  of  expiring  hope.  Baxter  was 
not  so  deceived.  In  common  with  the  other  heads  of  his 
party,  he  judged  the  faith  of  Charles  an  inadequate  secu¬ 
rity,  and  refused  the  proffered  mitre  of  Hereford  as  an  in¬ 
sidious  bribe.* 

There  were  abundant  reasons  for  this  distrust.  Thanks 
for  his  gracious  purposes  in  favour  of  the  Nonconformists 
had  been  presented  to  the  head  of  the  Church  by  the 
House  of  Commons,  who  immediately  afterwards,  at  the 
instance  of  his  Majesty’s  Secretary  of  State,  rejected  the 
very  measure  which  had  kindled  their  gratitude.  Three 
months  had  scarcely  passed  since  the  declaration  had  is¬ 
sued,  when  an  Order  in  Council  proclaimed  the  illegality 
of  all  religious  meetings  held  without  the  walls  of  the  pa¬ 
rochial  churches.  The  book  of  Common  Prayer  and  the 
Statute  Book  were  daily  cementing  their  alliance,  the  one 
enlarged  by  a  supplication  for  “  grace  carefully  and  studi¬ 
ously  to  imitate  the  example  of  the  blessed  saint  and  mar¬ 
tyr  ”  who  had  now  attained  the  honours  of  canonization; 
the  other  requiring  the  officers  of  all  corporate  and  port 
towns  “to  take  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord’s  Supper;”  and 
to  swear  “  that  it  is  not  lawful,  upon  any  pretence  whatso¬ 
ever,  to  take  arms  against  the  King,”  or  against  “  those 
commissioned  by  him.” 

Amidst  these  Parliamentary  thunders  were  opened  the 
conferences  of  the  Savoy,  which  were  to  reduce  to  a  definite 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


165 


meaning  the  declarations  of  Breda  and  of  Whitehall.  It 
was  the  scene  of  Baxter’s  triumph  and  defeat — the  triumph 
of  his  promptitude,  subtlety,  and  boundless  resource — the 
defeat  of  the  last  hope  he  was  permitted  to  indulge,  of 
peace  to  himself  or  to  the  Church  of  which  he  was  then 
the  brightest  ornament.  The  tactics  of  popular  assemblies 
form  a  system  of  licensed  deceit;  and  their  conventional 
morality  tolerates  the  avowal  of  the  skill  by  which  the  an¬ 
tagonist  party  has  been  overreached,  and  even  an  open  ex¬ 
ultation  in  the  success  of  such  contrivances.  To  embarrass 
the  Presbyterians  by  the  course  of  the  discussion,  to  invent 
plausible  pretexts  for  delay,  and  to  guide  the  controversy 
to  an  impotent,  if  not  a  ludicrous  close,  were  the  scarcely 
concealed  objects  of  the  Episcopalians.  Opposed  to  these 
by  the  feebler  party  were  the  contrivances  by  which  weak¬ 
ness  usually  seeks  to  evade  the  difficulties  it  cannot  stem, 
and  the  captiousness  which  few  can  restrain  when  over¬ 
borne  by  the  superior  force  of  numbers  or  of  authority. 

Whoever  has  seen  a  Parliament,  may  easily  imagine  a 
Synod.  Baxter  was  the  leader  of  an  unpopular  opposition, 
—the  Charles  Fox  of  the  Savoy,  of  which  Morley  was  the 
William  Pitt,  and  Gunning  the  Henry  Dundas.  To  review 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  “  to  advise  and  consult 
upon  the  same,  and  the  several  objections  and  exceptions 
which  shall  be  raised  against  the  same,”  was  the  task  as¬ 
signed  by  Charles  to  twelve  bishops,  nine  doctors  of  divinity, 
and  twenty-one  Presbyterian  divines.  Exalted  by  the  ac¬ 
clamation  of  the  whole  Episcopalian  party  to  the  head  of 
all  human  writings,  not  without  some  doubts  whether  it 
should  not  rather  class  with  those  of  the  sacred  canon,  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  was  pronounced  by  the  bishops, 
at  the  opening  of  the  conferences,  to  be  exempt  from  any 
errors  which  they  could  detect,  and  incapable  of  any  im¬ 
provements  which  they  could  suggest.  They  could  not 
therefore  advance  to  the  encounter  until  their  antagonists 
should  have  unrolled  the  long  catalogue  of  their  hostile 
criticisms  and  projected  amendments.  From  such  a  chal¬ 
lenge  it  was  not  in  Baxter’s  nature  to  shrink,  though  warned 
by  his  associates  of  the  motives  by  which  it  was  dictated, 
and  of  the  dangers  to  which  it  would  lead.  “  Bishop 
Sheldon,”  says  Burnet,  “  saw  well  enough  what  the  effect 
tyould  be  of  obliging  them  to  make  all  their  demands  at 
once,  that  the  number  would  raise  a  mighty  outcry  against 


166  Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

them  as  a  people  that  could  never  be  satisfied.”  In  four¬ 
teen  days  Baxter  had  prepared  a  new  liturgy.  In  a  few 
more  he  had  completed  his  objections  to  the  former  rubric, 
with  an  humble  petition  for  peace  and  indulgence.  Fast 
and  thick  flew  over  the  field  the  missiles  of  theological 
theses  before  the  closer  conflict  of  oral  debate.  This  was 
waged  in  high  dialectic  latitudes.  Take  the  following 
example:— That  command  ”  (we  quote  the  Episcopalian 
proponitnr )  “  which  enjoins  only  an  act  in  itself  lawful,  and 
no  other  act  whereby  an  unjust  penalty  is  enjoined,  or  any 
circumstance  whence  directly  or  per  aecidens  any  sin  is 
consequent,  which  the  commander  ought  to  provide  against, 
hath  in  it  all  things  requisite  to  the  lawfulness  of  a  com¬ 
mand,  and  particularly  cannot  be  charged  with  enjoining 
an  act  per  aecidens  unlawful,  nor  of  commanding  an  act 
under  an  unjust  penalty.”  As  an  Indian  listens  to  the  war- 
cry  of  a  hostile  tribe,  Baxter  heard  the  announcement  of 
this  heretical  doctrine,  and  plunged  headlong  into  the  fight. 
Pouring  forth  his  boundless  stores  of  metaphysical,  moral, 
and  scholastic  speculation,  he  alternately  plunged  and  soared 
beyond  the  reach  of  ordinary  vision — distinguished  and 
qualified,  quoted  and  subtilized,  till  his  voice  was  drowned 
“in  noise  and  confusion,  and  high  reflections  on  his  dark 
and  cloudy  imagination.”  Bishop  Sanderson,  the  Mode¬ 
rator,  adjudged  the  palm  of  victory  to  his  opponent.  “  Bax¬ 
ter  and  Gunning”  (the  words  are  Burnet’s)  “  spent  several 
days  in  logical  arguing,  to  the  diversion  of  the  town,  who 
looked  upon  them  as  a  couple  of  fencers  engaged  in  a  dis¬ 
pute  that  could  not  be  brought  to  any  end.”  It  had,  how¬ 
ever,  reached  the  only  end  which  the  King  and  his  advisers 
had  ever  contemplated.  An  apology  had  been  made  for 
the  breach  of  the  royal  promise.  Henceforth  the  Presby¬ 
terians  might  be  denounced  as  men  whom  reason  could  not 
convince,  and  who  were  therefore  justly  given  up  to  the 
coercion  of  penal  laws.  To  cast  on  them  a  still  deeper 
shade  of  contumacy,  some  few  trifling  changes  were  made 
in  the  Rubric  by  the  Convocation.  The  Church  was  re¬ 
quired  to  celebrate  the  martyrdom  of  the  first  Charles,  and 
the  restoration  of  the  second, — that  “  most  religious  and 
gracious  King,”  (the  last  epithet  with  which  in  the  same 
sentence  the  monarch  was  complimented  and  the  Deity  in¬ 
voked;)  and,  as  if  still  more  certainly  to  exclude  from  her 
pale  those  who  had  sued  in  vain  for  entrance,  Bel  and  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


167 


Dragon,  and  other  worthies  of  the  Apocrypha,  were  now 
called  to  take  their  stations  in  her  weekly  services. 

Had  Charles  been  permitted  to  follow  the  dictates  of  his 
own  easy  nature,  or  of  his  religious  predilections,  he  would 
(though  for  precisely  opposite  reasons)  have  emulated  the 
zeal  of  Cromwell  for  liberty  of  conscience.  He  would 
gladly  have  secured  that  freedom  to  his  Roman  Catholic 
subjects;  and  would  still  more  gladly  have  relieved  himself 
from  the  trouble  of  persecuting  the  Protestant  Dissenters. 
But  the  time  was  still  unripe  for  such  hazardous  experi¬ 
ments.  At  the  dictation  of  Clarendon,  he  was  made  to 
assure  his  Parliament  that  he  was  “  as  much  in  love  with  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  as  they  could  wish,  and  had  pre¬ 
judices  enough  against  those  who  did  not  love  it.”  Within 
two  years  from  his  return,  the  depth  and  sincerity  of  this 
affection  were  attested  by  the  imprisonment  of  more  than 
four  thousand  Quakers,  and  by  the  promulgation  of  the 
Act  of  Uniformity.  Among  the  two  thousand  clergymen 
whom  this  law  excluded  from  the  Church,  Baxter  was  on 
every  account  the  most  conspicuous.  He  had  refused  the 
bishopric  of  Hereford,  and  the  united  interest  of  Charles 
and  Clarendon  had  been  exerted  in  vain  (so  with  most  ela¬ 
borate  hypocrisy  it  was  pretended)  to  recover  for  him  a 
curacy  at  Kidderminster.  He  for  ever  quitted  that  scene 
of  his  apostolic  labours;  and  in  the  forty-seventh  year  of 
his  age,  bowed  down  with  bodily  infirmities,  was  driven 
from  his  home  and  his  weeping  congregation,  to  pass  the 
remainder  of  his  life  in  loathsome  jails  or  precarious  hiding- 
places;  there  to  achieve,  in  penury  and  almost  ceaseless 
pain,  works  without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  English 
theological  literature,  for  their  extent,  or  their  prodigality 
of  mental  resources. 

Solitude  was  not  among  the  aggravations  of  his  lot, 
Margaret  Charlton  was  a  lady  of  gentle  birth,  rich  in  the 
gifts  of  nature  and  of  fortune.  She  dwelt  in  her  mother’s 
house  at  Kidderminster,  where  both  parent  and  child  found 
in  Baxter  their  teacher  and  spiritual  guide.  “  In  her  youth, 
pride  and  romances,  and  company  suitable  thereto,  did  take 
her  up.”  But  sickness  came,  and  he  ministered  to  her 
anxieties;  and  health  returned,  and  he  led  the  thanksgiving 
of  the  congregation;  and  there  were  mental  conflicts  in  which 
lie  sustained  her,  and  works  of  mercy  in  which  he  directed 
her,  and  notes  were  made  of  his  sermons,  and  passages 


168  Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

/  . 

were  transcribed  from  his  consolatory  letters,  and  gradually 
— but  who  needs  to  be  told  the  result?  Margaret  was  no 
ordinary  woman.  Her  “  strangely  vivid  wit  ”  is  celebrated 
by  the  admirable  John  Howe;  and  her  widowed  husband, 
in  “The  breviate  of  her  life,”  has  drawn  a  portrait  the 
original  of  which  it  would  have  been  criminal  not  to  love. 
Timid,  gentle,  and  reserved,  and  nursed  amidst  all  the 
luxuries  of  her  age,  her  heart  was  the  abode  of  affections 
so  intense,  and  of  a  fortitude  so  enduring,  that  her  meek 
spirit,  impatient  of  one  selfish  wish,  progressively  acquired 
all  the  heroism  of  benevolence,  and  seemed  at  length  inca¬ 
pable  of  one  selfish  fear.  In  prison,  in  sickness,  in  evil 
report,  in  every  form  of  danger  and  fatigue,  she  was  still 
with  unabated  cheerfulness  at  the  side  of  him  to  whom  she 
had  pledged  her  conjugal  faith; — prompting  him  to  the  dis¬ 
charge  of  every  duty,  calming  the  asperities  of  his  temper, 
his  associate  in  unnumbered  acts  of  philanthropy,  embel¬ 
lishing  his  humble  home  by  the  little  arts  with  which  a 
cultivated  mind  imparts  its  own  gracefulness  to  the  meanest 
dwelling  place;  and  during  the  nineteen  years  of  their  union 
joining  with  him  in  one  unbroken  strain  of  filial  affiance  to 
the  Divine  mercy,  and  of  a  grateful  adoration  for  the  Divine 
goodness.  Her  tastes  and  habits  had  been  moulded  into  a 
perfect  conformity  to  his.  He  celebrates  her  Catholic 
charity  to  the  opponents  of  their  religious  opinions,  and 
her  inflexible  adherence  to  her  own;  her  high  esteem  of  the 
active  and  passive  virtues  of  the  Christian  life,  as  contrasted 
with  a  barren  orthodoxy;  her  noble  disinterestedness,  her 
skill  in  casuistry,  her  love  of  music,  and  her  medicinal  arts. 
Peace  be  to  the  verses  which  he  poured  out  not  to  extol 
but  to  animate  her  devotion.  If  Margaret  was  wooed  in 
strains  over  which  Sacharissa  would  have  slumbered,  Bax¬ 
ter’s  uncouth  rhymes  have  a  charm  which  Waller’s  lyrics 
cannot  boast — the  charm  of  purity,  and  reverence,  and 
truth.  The  Eloise  of  Abelard,  and  the  Eloise  of  Rousseau, 
revealing  but  too  accurately  one  of  the  dark  chambers  of 
the  human  heart,  have  poisoned  the  imagination,  and  ren¬ 
dered  it  difficult  to  conceive  of  such  ties  as  those  which 
first  drew  together  the  souls  of  the  Nonconformist  minister 
and  his  pupil; — he  approaching  his  fiftieth  and  she  scarcely 
past  her  twentieth  year;  he  stricken  with  penury,  disease, 
and  persecution,  and  she  in  the  enjoyment  of  affluence  and 
of  the  world’s  alluring  smiles.  It  was  not  in  the  reign  of 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


169 


Charles  the  Second,  that  wit  or  will  were  wanting  to  ridi¬ 
cule,  or  to  upbraid  such  espousals.  Grave  men  sighed  over 
the  weakness  of  the  venerable  divine;  and  gay  men  dis¬ 
ported  themselves  with  so  effective  an  incident  in  the  tragi¬ 
comedy  of  life.  Much  had  the  great  moralist  written  upon 
the  benefits  of  clerical  celibacy;  for,  “when  he  said  so,  he 
thought  that  he  should  die  a  bachelor.”  Something  he 
wrote  as  follows,  in  defence  of  his  altered  opinions: — “  The 
unsuitableness  of  our  age,  and  my  former  known  purposes 
against  marriage  and  against  the  conveniency  of  minister’s 
marriage,  who  have  no  sort  of  necessity,  made  our  marriage 
the  matter  of  much  talk;”  but  he  most  judiciously  pro¬ 
ceeds,  “the  true  opening  of  her  case  and  mine,  and  the 
many  strange  occurrences  which  brought  it  to  pass,  would 
take  away  the  wonder  of  her  friends  and  mine  that  knew 
us,  and  the  notice  of  it  would  conduce  to  the  understanding 
of  some  other  passages  of  our  lives.  Yet  wise  friends,  by 
whom  I  am  advised,  think  it  better  to  omit  such  personal 
particularities  at  this  time.  Both  in  her  case  and  in  mine 
there  was  much  extraordinary,  which  it  doth  not  much  con¬ 
cern  the  world  to  be  acquainted  with.”  Under  this  apology, 
it  veiled  the  fact  that  Margaret  herself  first  felt,  or  first  be¬ 
trayed  the  truth,  that  a  sublunary  affection  had  blended 
itself  with  their  devotional  feelings;  and  that  she  encouraged 
him  to  claim  that  place  in  her  heart  which  the  holiest  of 
human  beings  has  still  left  for  mere  human  sympathy.  It 
was  an  attachment  hallowed  on  either  side  by  all  that  can 
give  dignity  to  the  passions  to  which  all  are  alike  subject. 
To  her  it  afforded  the  daily  delight  of  supporting  in  his  gi¬ 
gantic  labours,  and  of  soothing  in  his  unremitted  cares,  a 
husband  who  repaid  her  tenderness  with  unceasing  love  and 
gratitude.  To  him  it  gave  a  friend  whose  presence  was 
tranquillity,  who  tempered  by  her  milder  wisdom,  and 
graced  by  her  superior  elegance,  and  exalted  by  her  more 
confiding  piety,  whatever  was  austere,  or  rude,  or  distrustful 
in  his  rugged  character.  After  all,  it  must  be  confessed 
that  the  story  will  not  fall  handsomely  to  any  niche  in  the 
chronicles  of  romance;  though,  even  in  that  light,  Crabbe 
or  Marmontel  would  have  made  something  of  it.  Yet,  un¬ 
supported  by  any  powers  of  narrative,  it  is  a  tale  which 
will  never  want  its  interest,  so  long  as  delight  shall  be  fell 
in  contemplating  the  submission  of  the  sternest  and  most 
15 


170 


Stephen’s  miscellanies* 


powerful  minds  to  that  kindly  influence  which  cements  and 
blesses,  and  which  should  ennoble  human  society. 

Over  the  declining  years  of  Baxter’s  life,  friendship,  as 
well  as  conjugal  love,  threw  a  glow  of  consolation  which 
no  man  ever  needed  or  ever  valued  more.  His  affectionate 
record  of  his  associates  has  rescued  some  of  their  names 
fropi  oblivion.  Such  is  the  case  with  “  good  old  Simon 
A$h,  who  went  seasonably  to  heaven  at  the  very  time  he 
was  to  be  cast  out  of  the  church;  who,  having  a  good 
estate,  and  a  very  good  wife,  inclined  to  entertainments  and 
liberalitv,  kept  a  house  much  frequented  by  ministers, 
where,  always  cheerful,  without  profuse  laughter,  or  levity, 
and  never  troubled  with  doubtings,”  he  imparted  to  others 
the  gaiety  of  his  own  heart,  and  died  as  he  had  lived,  “  in 
great  consolation  and  cheerful  exercise  of  faith,  molested 
with  no  fears  or  doubts,  exceedingly  glad  of  the  company 
of  his  friends,  and  greatly  encouraging  all  about  him.” 
Such  also  was  “  good  Mr.  James  Walton,  commonly  called 
the  weeping  prophet;  of  a  most  holy  blameless  life,  and, 
though  learned,  greatly  averse  to  controversy  and  dispute;” 
a  man  who  had  struggled  successfully  against  constitutional 
melancholy,  until  troubled  with  the  sad  case  of  the  Church 
and  the  multitude  of  ministers  cast  out,  and  at  his  own 
unserviceableness,  he  consumed  to  death.” 

To  the  Democritus  and  Heraclitus  of  nonconformity,  a 
far  greater  name  succeeds  in  the  catalogue  of  Baxter’s 
friends.  In  the  village  of  Acton,  Sir  Matthew  Hale  had 
found  an  occasional  retreat  from  the  cares  of  his  judicial 
life;  and  devoted  his  leisure  to  science  and  theology,  and 
to  social  intercourse  with  the  ejected  Nonconformist.  In 
an  age  of  civil  strife,  he  had  proposed  to  himself  the  ex¬ 
ample  of  Atticus,  and,  like  that  accomplished  person,  en¬ 
deavoured  to  avert  the  enmity  of  the  contending  parties  by 
the  fearless  discharge  of  his  duties  to  all,  without  minis¬ 
tering  to  the  selfish  ends  of  any.  The  frugal  simplicity  of 
his  habits,  his  unaffected  piety  and  studious  pursuits,  ena¬ 
bled  him  to  keep  this  hazardous  path  with  general  esteem, 
though  he  was  more  indebted  for  safety  to  his  unrivalled 
eminence  as  a  lawyer  and  a  judge.  Though  Cromwell 
and  Ludlow  rebelled  against  the  Papal  authority  of  West¬ 
minster  Hall,  their  age  lagged  far  behind  them.  In  the 
overthrow  of  all  other  institutions,  the  courts  in  which 
Fortescue  and  Coke  had  explained  or  invented  the  imme- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


171 


morial  customs  of  England,  were  still  the  objects  of  uni¬ 
versal  veneration;  and  the  supremacy  of  the  law  secured 
to  its  sages  the  homage  of  the  people.  Never  was  it  ren¬ 
dered  more  justly  than  to  Hale.  With  the  exception  of 
Roger  North,  we  remember  no  historian  of  that  day  who 
does  not  bear  an  unqualified  testimony  to  his  uprightness, 
to  the  surpassing  compass  of  his  professional  learning,  and 
the  exquisite  skill  with  which  it  was  employed.  That 
agreeable,  though  most  prejudiced  writer,  refuses  him  not 
only  this,  but  the  still  higher  praise  of  spotless  patriotism, 
and  ridicules  his  pretensions  as  a  philosopher  and  divine. 
Baxter,  an  incomparably  better  judge,  thought  far  other¬ 
wise.  In  the  learning  in  which  he  himself  excelled  all 
others,  he  assigned  a  high  station  to  Hale:  and  has  re¬ 
corded  that  his  “  conference,  mostly  about  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  and  other  philosophical  and  foundation  points, 
was  so  edifying,  that  his  very  questions  and  objections  did 
help  me  to  more  light  than  other  men’s  solutions.”  Dif¬ 
fering  on  those  subjects  which  then  agitated  society,  their 
minds,  enlarged  by  nobler  contemplations,  rose  far  above 
the  controversies  of  their  age;  and  were  united  in  efforts 
for  their  mutual  improvement,  and  for  advancing  the  in¬ 
terests  of  religion,  truth,  and  virtue.  It  wras  a  grave  and 
severe,  but  an  affectionate  friendship;  such  as  can  subsist 
only  between  men  who  have  lived  in  the  habitual  restraint 
of  their  lower  faculties,  and  in  the  strenuous  culture  of 
those  powers  which  they  believe  to  be  destined  hereafter, 
and  to  be  ripening  now,  for  an  indefinite  expansion  and  an 
immortal  existence. 

From  such  intercourse  Baxter  was  rudely  called  away. 
Not  satisfied  with  the  rigid  uniformity  of  professed  belief 
and  external  observances  amongst  the  clergy  of  the  Estab¬ 
lished  Church,  Parliament  had  denounced  a  scale  of  pe¬ 
nalties,  graduated  from  fine,  to  banishment  to  the  planta¬ 
tions,  against  laics  who  should  attend  any  other  form  of 
religious  worship,  even  in  private  houses,  where  more  than 
five  strangers  should  be  present.  At  Acton,  a  personage 
of  no  mean  importance  watched  over  the  ecclesiastical  dis¬ 
cipline  of  the  parish.  “Dr.  Ryves,  rector  of  that  church 
and  of  Hadley,  dean  of  Windsor  and  of  Wolverhampton, 
and  chaplain  in  ordinary  to  the  King,”  could  not  patiently 
endure  the  irregularities  of  his  learned  neighbour.  The 
Dean  indeed  officiated  by  deputy,  and  his  curate  was  a  raw 


172 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


and  ignorant  youth;  and  Baxter  (an  occasional  conformist) 
was  a  regular  attendant  on  all  the  sacred  offices.  But  he 
refused  the  Oxford  oath,  and  at  his  domestic  worship  there 
were  sometimes  found  more  than  the  statutable  addition  to 
the  family  circle.  Such  offences  demanded  expiation.  He 
was  committed  to  Clerkenwell  jail;  and,  when  at  length 
discharged  from  it,  was  compelled  to  seek  a  new  and  more 
hospitable  residence.  He  had  his  revenge.  It  was  to  ob¬ 
tain,  through  the  influence  of  one  of  his  most  zealous  dis¬ 
ciples,  the  charter  which  incorporates  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel — a  return 
of  good  for  evil  for  which  his  name  might  well  displace 
those  of  some  of  the  saints  in  the  calendar. 

While  the  plague  was  depopulating  London,  and  the 
silenced  clergymen  were  discharging  the  unenvied  office 
of  watching  over  the  multitude  appointed  to  death,  the 
King  and  Clarendon,  at  a  secure  distance  from  the  conta¬ 
gion,  were  employed  in  framing  the  statute  which  de¬ 
nounced  the  most  rigid  punishment  against  any  noncon¬ 
formist  minister  who  should  approach  within  five  miles  of 
any  town  in  England,  or  of  any  parish  in  which  he  had 
formerly  officiated.  Totteridge,  a  hamlet,  round  which  a 
circle  of  ten  miles  in  diameter  could  be  drawn  without  in¬ 
cluding  any  of  the  residences  thus  proscribed  to  Baxter, 
became  his  next  abode,  but  was  not  permitted  to  be  a  place 
of  security  or  rest.  His  indefatigable  pen  had  produced  a 
paraphrase  on  the  New  Testament,  where  the  keen  scru¬ 
tiny  of  his  enemies  detected  libels,  to  be  refuted  only  by 
the  logic  of  the  court  and  prison  of  the  King’s  Bench. 
From  the  records  of  that  court,  Mr.  Orme  has  extracted 
the  indictment,  which  sets  forth,  that  “  Richardus  Baxter, 
persona  seditiosa  et  factiosa,  pravse  mentis,  irnpiae,  inquietae, 
turbulent’  disposition’  et  conversation’;”  — “  falso,  illicite, 
injuste,  nequit’,  factiose,  seditiose,  et  irreligiose,  fecit,  com- 
posuit,  scripsit  quendum  falsurn,  seditiosum,  libellosum, 
factiosum,  et  irreligiosum  librum.”  The  classical  pleader 
proceeds  in  a  vein  of  unconscious  humour  to  justify  these 
hard  words  by  the  use  of  the  figure  called,  we  believe,  a 
“  scilicet  ”  by  those  who  now  inhabit  the  ancient  abode  of 
the  Knights  Templars.  “  It  is  folly,”  says  the  paraphrase, 
“  to  doubt  whether  there  be  devils,  while  devils  incarnate 
dwell  amongst  us  here,”  (clericos  pred’  hujus  regni  Angl’ 
innuendo.)  “  What  else  but  devils  could  make  ceremonious 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


173 


hypocrites,’  (clericos  pred’  innuendo;)  “men  that  preach 
in  Christ’s  name,’  (seipsum  R.  B.  et  al’  seditiosas  et  fac- 
tiosas  person’  innuendo,)  “  therefore,  are  not  to  be  silenced 
if  they  do  no  more  harm  than  good.  Dreadful  then  is  the 
case  of  men,”  (episcopos  et  ministros  justitise  infr’  hujus 
regni  Angl’  innuendo,)  “that  silence  Christ’s  faithful  mi¬ 
nisters,”  (seipsum  R.  B.  et  al’  seditiosas  et  factiosas  per¬ 
son’  innuendo.) 

Ansley  and  George  Stevens  were  dull  fellows  compared 
with  the  great  originals  from  which  they  drew.  L’Es- 
trange  himsejf  might  have  taken  a  lesson  in  the  art  of  de¬ 
famation,  from  this  innuendoing  special  pleader.  But  the 
absurdity  was  crowned  by  the  conduct  of  the  trial.  Ab¬ 
horrence,  disgust,  indignation,  and  all  other  feelings  of  the 
sterner  kind,  gave  way  to  the  irresistible  sense  of  the  lu¬ 
dicrous,  in  some  parts  of  the  judicial  career  of  Jeffries; 
and  “  to  be  grave  exceeds  all  powers  of  face,”  in  reading 
the  narrative  of  this  proceeding,  which  was  drawn  up  b}^ 
one  of  the  spectators.  The  judge  entered  the  court  with 
his  face  flaming,  “  he  snorted  and  squeaked,  blew  his  nose 
and  clenched  his  hands,  and  lifted  up  his  eyes,  mimicking 
their  manner,  and  running  on  furiously,  as  he  said  they 
used  to  pray.”  The  ermined  buffoon  extorted  a  smile 
from  the  nonconformists  themselves.  Pollexfen,  the  lead¬ 
ing  counsel  for  the  defence,  gave  into  the  humour,  and  at¬ 
tempted  to  gain  attention  for  his  argument  by  a  jest. 
“  My  Lord,”  he  said,  “  some  will  think  it  a  hard  measure 
to  stop  these  men’s  mouths,  and  not  to  let  them  speak 
through  their  noses.”  “  Pollexfen,”  said  Jeffries,  “  I  know 
you  well.  You  are  the  patron  of  the  faction;  this  is  an 
old  rogue  who  has  poisoned  the  world,  with  his  Kidder¬ 
minster  doctrine.  lie  encouraged  all  the  women  to  bring 
their  bodkins  and  thimbles,  to  carry  on  the  war  against 
their  King,  of  ever  blessed  memory.  An  old  schismatical 
knave — a  hypocritical  villain.”  “  My  Lord,”  replied  the 
counsel,  “  Mr.  Baxter’s  loyal  and  peaceable  spirit,  King 
Charles  would  have  rewarded  with  a  bishopric,  when  he 
came  in,  if  he  would  have  conformed.”  “Ay,”  said  the 
judge,  “  we  know  that;  but  what  ailed  the  old  blockhead, 
the  unthankful  villain,  that  he  would  not  conform?  Is  he 
wiser  or  better  than  other  men?  He  hath  been,  ever  since, 
the  spring  of  the  faction.  I  am  sure  he  hath  poisoned  the 
world  with  his  linsey-woolsey  doctrine,  a  conceited— -stub- 

15* 


174 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


born,  fanatical  dog.”  After  one  counsel,  and  another,  had 
been  overborne  by  the  fury  of  Jeffries,  Baxter  himself  took 
up  the  argument.  “  My  Lord,”  he  said,  “I  have  been  so 
moderate  with  respect  to  the  Church  of  England,  that  I 
have  incurred  the  censure  of  many  of  the  Dissenters  on 
that  account.”  “  Baxter  for  Bishops,”  exclaimed  the 
judge,  “is  a  merry  conceit  indeed.  Turn  to  it,  turn  to 
it!”  On  this  one  of  the  counsel  turned  to  a  passage  in 
the  libel,  which  stated,  that  “  great  respect  is  due  to  those 
truly  called  bishops  amongst  us.”  “Ay,”  said  Jeffries, 
“this  is  your  Presbyterian  cant,  truly  called  to  be  bishops; 
that  is  of  himself  and  such  rascals,  called  the  bishops  of 
Kidderminster,  and  other  such  places.  The  bishops  set 
apart  by  such  factious — snivelling  Presbyterians  as  himself; 
a  Kidderminster  bishop  he  means,  according  to  the  saying 
of  a  late  learned  author,  every  parish  shall  maintain  a  tythe- 
pig  metropolitan.”  Baxter  offering  to  speak  again,  Jeffries 
exploded  in  the  following  apostrophe.  “  Richard!  Rich¬ 
ard!  dost  thou  think  here  to  poison  the  court?  Richard, 
thou  art  an  old  fellow — an  old  knave;  thou  hast  written 
books  enough  to  load  a  cart,  every  one  as  full  of  sedition, 
I  might  say  treason,  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat.  Hadst 
thou  been  whipped  out  of  thy  writing  trade  forty  years 
ago,  it  had  been  happy.  I  know  that  thou  hast  a  mighty 
party,  and  I  see  a  great  many  of  the  brotherhood  in  cor¬ 
ners,  waiting  to  see  what  will  become  of  their  mighty  don, 
and  a  doctor  of  your  party  at  your  elbow;  but  I  will  crush 
you  all.  Come,  what  do  you  say  for  yourself,  you  old 
knave — come  speak  up,  what  doth  he  say?  I  am  not  afraid 
of  him,  or  of  all  the  snivelling  calves  you  have  got  about 
you,” — alluding  to  some  persons  who  were  in  tears  at  this 
scene.  “  Your  Lordship  need  not,”  said  Baxter,  “  for  I’ll 
not  hurt  you.  But  these  things  will  surely  be  understood 
one  day;  what  fools  one  sort  of  Protestants  are  made,  to 
prosecute  the  other.”  Then  lifting  up  his  eyes  to  Heaven, 
he  said,  “  I  am  not  concerned  to  answer  such  stuff,  but  am 
ready  to  produce  my  writings,  in  confutation  of  all  this; 
and  my  life  and  conversation  are  known  to  many  in  this 
nation.” 

The  jury  returned  a  verdict  of  guilty,  and  but  for  the 
resistance  of  the  other  judges,  Jeffries  would  have  added 
whipping  through  the  city  to  the  sentence  of  imprisonment. 
It  was  to  continue  until  the  prisoner  should  have  paid  five 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


175 


hundred  marks.  Baxter  was  at  that  time  in  his  70th 
year.  A  childless  widower,  groaning  under  the  agonies  of 
bodily  pain,  and  reduced  by  former  persecutions  to  sell  all 
that  he  possessed;  he  entered  the  King’s  Bench  prison  in 
utter  poverty,  and  remained  there  for  nearly  two  years, 
hopeless  of  any  other  abode  on  earth.  But  the  hope  of  a 
mansion  of  eternal  peace  and  love  raised  him  beyond  the 
reach  of  human  tyranny.  He  possessed  his  soul  in  pa¬ 
tience.  Wise  and  good  men  resorted  to  his  prison,  and 
brought  back  greetings  to  his  distant  friends,  and  maxims 
of  piety  and  prudence.  Happy  in  the  review  of  a  well- 
spent  life,  and  still  happier  in  the  prospect  of  its  early 
close,  his  spirit  enjoyed  a  calm  for  which  his  enemies 
might  have  well  exchanged  their  mitres  and  their  thrones. 
His  pen,  the  faithful  companion  of  his  troubles,  as  of  his 
joys,  still  plied  the  Herculean  tasks  which  habit  had  ren¬ 
dered  not  merely  easy,  but  delightful  to  him;  and  what 
mattered  the  gloomy  walls  or  the  obscene  riot  of  a  jail, 
while  he  was  free  to  wander  from  early  dawn  to  nightfall 
over  the  sublime  heights  of  devotion,  or  through  the  in¬ 
terminable,  but  to  him  not  pathless  wilderness  of  psycho¬ 
logy?  There  pain  and  mortal  sickness  were  unheeded,  and 
his  long-lost  wife  forgotten,  or  remembered  only  that  he 
might  rejoice  in  their  approaching  re-union.  The  altered 
policy  in  the  Court  restored  him  for  awhile  to  the  ques¬ 
tionable  advantage  of  bodily  freedom.  “  At  this  time,” 
says  the  younger  Calamy,  “he  talked  about  another  world 
like  one  that  had  been  there,  and  was  come  as  an  express 
from  thence  to  make  a  report  concerning  it.”  But  age,  sick¬ 
ness,  and  persecution  had  done  their  work.  His  material 
frame  gave  way  to  the  pressure  of  disease,  though,  in  the 
language  of  one  of  his  last  associates,  “  his  soul  abode 
rational,  strong  in  faith  and  hope.”  That  his  dying  hours 
were  agitated  by  the  doubts  which  had  clouded  his  earlier 
days,  has  been  often  but  erroneously  asserted.  With  man¬ 
ly  truth,  he  rejected,  as  affectation,  the  wish  for  death  to 
which  some  pretend.  He  assumed  no  stoical  indifference 
to  pain,  and  indulged  in  no  unhallowed  familiarity  on  those 
awful  subjects  which  occupy  the  thoughts  of  him  whose 
eye  is  closing  on  sublunary  things,  and  is  directed  to  an 
instant  eternity.  In  profound  lowliness,  with  a  settled  re¬ 
liance  on  the  Divine  Mercy,  repeating  at  frequent  intervals 
the  prayer  of  the  Redeemer,  on  whom  his  hopes  reposed, 


176 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


and  breathing  out  benedictions  on  those  who  encircled  his 
dyingbed,  he  passed  away  from  alife  of  almost  unequalled 
toil  and  suffering,  to  a  new  condition  of  existence,  where 
lie  doubted  not  to  enjoy  that  perfect  conformity  of  the  hu¬ 
man  to  the  Divine  will,  to  which,  during  his  three-score 
years  and  ten,  it  had  been  his  ceaseless  labour  to  attain. 

The  record  of  the  solitary,  rather  than  of  the  social  hours 
of  a  man  of  letters,  must  form  the  staple  of  his  biography, 
yet  he  must  be  a  strenuous  reader,  who  should  be  able, 
from  his  own  knowledge,  to  prepare  such  a  record  of  the 
fruits  of  Richard  Baxter’s  solitude.  After  a  familiarity  of 
many  years  with  his  writings,  it  must  be  avowed,  that  of 
the  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  volumes  comprised  in  the 
catalogue  of  his  printed  works,  there  are  some  which  we 
have  never  seen,  and  many  with  which  we  can  boast  but 
a  very  slight  acquaintance.  These,  however,  are  such  as 
(to  borrow  a  phrase  from  Mr.  Hallam)  have  ceased  to  be¬ 
long  to  men,  and  have  become  the  property  of  moths. 
From  the  recesses  of  the  library  in  Red  Cross  Street,  they 
lower  in  the  sullen  majority  of  the  folio  age,  over  the  pig¬ 
mies  of  this  duodecimo  generation;  the  expressive,  though 
neglected  monuments  of  occurrences,  which  can  never  lose 
their  place,  or  their  interest,  in  the  history  of  theological 
literature. 

The  English  Reformation  produced  no  Luther,  Calvin, 
Zuingle,  or  Knox — no  man  who  imparted  to  the  national 
mind  the  impress  of  his  own  character,  or  the  heritage  of 
his  religious  creed.  Our  Reformers,  Cranmer  scarcely  ex¬ 
cepted,  were  statesmen  rather  than  divines.  Neither  he, 
nor  those  more  properly  called  the  martyrs  of  the  Church 
of  England,  ever  attempted  the  stirring  appeals  to  mankind 
at  large,  which  awakened  the  echoes  of  the  presses  and 
the  pulpits  of  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  France.  From 
the  papal  to  the  royal  supremacy — from  the  legatine  to  the 
archiepiscopal  power — from  the  Roman  missal  to  the  An¬ 
glican  liturgy,  the  transition  was  easy,  and,  in  many  re¬ 
spects,  not  very  perceptible.  An  ambidexter  controversial¬ 
ist,  the  English  Church  warred  at  once  with  the  errors  of 
Rome  and  of  Geneva;  until  relenting  towards  her  first  an- 
tagonist,  she  turned  the  whole  power  of  her  arms  against 
her  domestic  and  more  dreaded  enemy.  To  the  resources 
of  piety,  genius,  and  learning,  were  added  less  legitimate 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


177 


weapons;  and  the  Puritans  underwent  confiscation,  impri¬ 
sonment,  exile,  compulsory  silence;  every  thing,  in  short, 
except  conviction.  When  the  civil  wars  unloosed  their 
tongues  and  gave  freedom  to  their  pens,  they  found  them¬ 
selves  without  any  established  standard  of  religious  belief: 
every  question  debatable;  and  every  teacher  conscience- 
bound  to  take  his  share  in  the  debate.  Presbyterians,  In¬ 
dependents,  Anabaptists,  Seekers,  Familists,  Behmenists, 
and  Quakers,  were  agreed  only  in  cementing  a  firm  alliance 
against  their  common  enemies,  the  Prelatists  and  Papists. 
Those  foes  subdued,  they  turned  against  each  other,  some 
contending  for  supremacy,  and  some  for  toleration,  but 
all  for  what  they  severally  regarded  or  professed  to  regard 
as  truth.  Nor  were  theirs  the  polemics  of  the  schools  or 
the  cloister.  The  war  of  religious  opinion  was  accompa¬ 
nied  by  the  roar  of  Cromwell’s  artillery — by  the  fall  of  an¬ 
cient  dynasties,  and  the  growth  of  a  military,  though  for¬ 
bearing  despotism.  It  was  an  age  of  deep  earnestness. 
Frivolous  and  luxurious  men  had  for  awhile  retreated  to 
make  way  for  impassioned  and  high-wrought  spirits; — the 
interpreters  at  once  of  the  ancient  revelations  and  of  the 
present  judgments  of  Heaven,  the  monitors  of  an  ungodly 
world,  and  the  comforters  of  those  who  bent  beneath  the 
weight  of  national  and  domestic  calamities.  Such  were 
that  memorable  race  of  authors  to  whom  is  given  collec¬ 
tively  the  name  of  the  Puritan  divines;  and  such,  above 
all  the  rest,  was  Richard  Baxter.  Intellectual  efforts  of 
such  severity  as  his,  relieved  by  not  so  much  as  one  pass¬ 
ing  smile:  public  services  of  such  extent,  interrupted  by 
no  one  recorded  relaxation;  thoughts  so  sleeplessly  intent 
on  those  awful  subjects,  in  the  presence  of  which  all  earth¬ 
ly  interests  are  annihilated,  might  seem  a  weight  too  vast 
for  human  endurance;  as  assuredly  it  forms  an  example 
which  few  would  have  the  power,  and  fewer  still  the  will, 
to  imitate.  His  seventy-five  years  unbroken  by  any  tran¬ 
sient  glance  at  gaiety:  his  one  hundred  and-sixty  eight  vo¬ 
lumes,  where  the  fancy  never  disports  herself;  a  mortal 
man  absorbed  in  the  solemn  realities,  and  absolutely  in¬ 
dependent  of  all  the  illusions  of  life,  appears  like  a  fiction, 
and  a  dull  one  too.  Yet  it  is  an  exact,  and  not  an  unin¬ 
viting  truth. 

Never  was  the  alliance  of  soul  and  body  formed  on  terms 
of  greater  inequality  than  in  Baxter’s  person.  It  was  like 


178 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


the  compact  in  the  fable,  where  all  the  spoils  and  honours 
fall  to  the  giant’s  share,  while  the  poor  dwarf  puts  up  with 
all  the  danger  and  the  blows.  The  mournful  list  of  his 
chronic  diseases  renders  almost  miraculous  the  mental 
vigour  which  bore  him  through  exertions  resembling  those 
of  a  disembodied  spirit.  But  his  ailments  were  such  as, 
without  affecting  his  nervous  energy,  gave  repose  to  his 
animal  appetites,  anil  quenched  the  thirst  for  all  the  emolu¬ 
ments  and  honours  of  this  sublunary  state.  Death,  though 
delaying  to  strike,  stood  continually  before  him,  ever 
quickening  his  attention  to  that  awful  presence,  by  ap¬ 
proaching  the  victim  under  some  new  or  varied  aspect  of 
disease.  Under  this  influence  he  wrote,  and  spoke,  and 
acted — a  dying  man,  conversant  with  the  living  in  all  their 
pursuits,  but  taking  no  share  in  their  worldly  hopes  and  fu¬ 
gitive  emotions.  Every  returning  day  was  welcomed  and 
improved,  as  though  it  were  to  be  his  last.  Each  sermon 
might  be  a  farewell  admonition  to  his  auditory.  The  sheets 
which  lay  before  him  were  rapidly  filled  with  the  first 
suggestions  of  his  mind  in  the  first  words  which  offered; 
for  to-morrow’s  sun  might  find  him  unable  to  complete  the 
momentous  task.  All  the  graces  and  the  negligences  of 
composition  were  alike  unheeded,  for  how  labour  as  an  ar¬ 
tist  when  the  voice  of  human  applause  might  in  a  few  short 
hours  become  inaudible!  In  Baxter,  the  characteristics  of 
his  age,  and  of  his  associates,  were  thus  heightened  by  the 
peculiarities  of  his  own  physical  and  mental  constitution. 
Their  earnestness  passed  in  him  into  a  profound  solemnity; 
their  diligence  into  an  unrelaxing  intensity  of  employ ment; 
their  disinterestedness  into  a  fixed  disdain  of  the  objects 
for  which  other  men  contend.  Even  the  episode  of  his 
marriage  is  in  harmony  with  the  rest.  He  renounced  the 
property  with  which  it  would  have  encumbered  him,  and 
stipulated  for  the  absolute  command  of  his  precarious  and 
inestimable  time.  Had  this  singular  concentration  of 
thought  and  purpose  befallen  a  man  of  quick  sympathies, 
it  would  have  overborne  his  spirits,  if  it  had  not  impaired 
his  reason.  But  Baxter  was  naturally  stern.  Had  it 
overtaken  a  man  of  vivid  imagination,  it  would  have  en¬ 
gendered  a  troop  of  fantastic  and  extravagant  day-dreams. 
But  to  Baxter’s  natural  vision  all  objects  presented  them¬ 
selves  with  a  hard  outline,  colourless,  with  no  surrounding 
atmosphere.  Had  it  been  united  to  a  cold  and  selfish 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


170 


heart,  the  result  would  have  been  a  life  of  ascetic  fanaticism. 
But  his  was  an  enlarged,  though  a  calm  philanthropy. 
H  is  mind,  though  never  averted  from  the  remembrance  of 
his  own  and  of  others’  eternal  doom,  was  still  her  own 
sovereign;  diligently  examining  the  foundations  and  deter¬ 
mining  the  limits  of  belief ;  methodizing  her  opinions  with 
painful  accuracy,  and  expanding  them  into  all  their  theo¬ 
retical  or  practical  results,  as  patiently  as  ever  analyst  ex¬ 
plored  the  depths  of  the  differential  calculus.  Still  every 
thing  was  to  the  purpose.  “I  have  looked,”  he  says, 
“over  Hutton,  Vives,  Erasmus,  Scaliger,  Salmasius,  Cas- 
saubon,  and  many  other  critical  grammarians,  and  all  Gru- 
ter’s  critical  volumes.  I  have  read  almost  all  the  physics 
and  metaphysics  I  could  hear  of.  I  have  wasted  much  of 
my  time  among  loads  of  historians,  chronologers,  and  an¬ 
tiquaries.  I  despise  none  of  their  learning — all  truth  is 
useful.  Mathematics,  which  I  have  least  of,  I  find  a  pretty 
and  manlike  sport;  but  if  I  have  no  other  kind  of  knowledge 
than  these,  what  were  my  understanding  worth?  What  a 
dreaming  dotard  should  I  be  ?  I  have  higher  thoughts  of 
the  schoolmen  than  Erasmus  and  our  other  grammarians 
had,  1  much  value  the  method  and  sobriety  of  Aquinas, 
the  subtlety  of  Scotus  and  Ockum,  the  plainness  of  Du- 
randus,  the  solidity  of  Ariminensis,  the  profundity  of 
Bradwardine,  the  excellent  acuteness  of  many  of  their  fol¬ 
lowers;  of  Aureolus,  Capreolus,  Bannes,  Alvarez,  Zumel, 
&c.;  of  Mayro,  Lychetus,  Trombeta,  Faber,  Meurisse, 
Rada,  &c.:  of  Ruiz,  Pennattes,  Saurez,  Vasquez,  <fcc.;  of 
Hurtado,  of  Albertinus,  of  Lud  a  Dola,  and  many  others. 
But  how  loath  should  I  be  to  take  such  sauce  for  my  food, 
and  such  recreations  for  my  business.  The  jingling  of  too 
much  and  false  philosophy  among  them  often  drowns  the 
noise  of  Aaron’s  bells.  I  feel  myself  much  better  in  Her¬ 
bert’s  temple.” 

Within  the  precincts  of  that  temple,  and  to  the  melody  of 
those  bells,  he  accordingly  proceeded  to  erect  the  vast  mo¬ 
nument  of  his  theological  works.  Their  basis  was  laid  in 
a  series  of  “  aphorisms  on  justification” — an  attempt  to  fix 
the  sense  of  the  sacred  volume  on  those  topics  which 
constitute  the  essentia!  peculiarities  of  the  Christian  system. 
The  assaults  with  which  the  aphorisms  had  been  encoun¬ 
tered  were  repelled  by  his  “Apology,”  a  large  volume  in 
quarto.  The  “Apology”  was,  within  a  few  months,  re-en- 


180 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


forced  by  another  quarto,  entitled  his  “  Confession  of 
Faith.”  Between  four  and  five  hundred  pages  of  “Dispu¬ 
tations”  came  to  the  succour  of  the  “  Confession.”  Then 
appeared  four  treatises  on  the  “  Doctrine  of  Perseverance,” 
on  “Saving  Faith,”  on  “Justifying  Righteousness,”  and 
“on  Universal  Redemption.”  Next  in  order  is  a  folio  of 
seven  hundred  pages,  entitled  “Catholic  Theology,  plain, 
pure,  peaceable,  unfolding  and  resolving  all  the  controver¬ 
sies  of  the  Schoolmen,  the  Papists  and  the  Protestants. 
This  was  eclipsed  by  a  still  more  ponderous  folio  in  Latin, 
entitled,  “  Methodus  Theologise  Christianae,”  composed, 
to  quote  his  own  words,  “in  my  retirement  at  Totteridge, 
in  a  troublesome,  smoky,  suffocating  room,  in  the  midst  of 
daily  pains  of  sciatica,  and  many  worse.”  After  laying 
down  the  nature  of  Deity,  and  all  things  in  general,  he 
discloses  all  the  relations,  eternal  and  historical,  between 
God  and  man,  with  all  the  abstract  truths,  and  all  the  moral 
obligations  deducible  from  them; — detecting  the  universal 
presence  of  the  Trinity,  not  in  the  Divine  Being  only,  but 
in  all  things  psychological  and  material  which  flow  from 
the  great  fountain  of  life.  With  an  “End  of  Doctrinal 
Controversies,” — a  title,  he  observes,  not  intended  as  a 
prognostic,  but  as  didactical  and  corrective — terminated 
his  efforts  to  close  up  the  mighty  questions  which  touch 
on  man’s  highest  hopes  and  interests.  He  had  thrown 
upon  them  such  an  incredible  multitude  and  variety  of 
cross  lights,  as  effectually  to  dazzle  any  intellectual  vision 
less  aquiline  than  his  own. 

His  next  enterprise  was  to  win  mankind  to  religious 
concord.  A  progeny  of  twelve  books,  most  of  them  of 

considerable  volume,  attest  his  zeal  in  this  arduous  cause. 

> 

Blessed,  we  are  told,  are  the  peacemakers ;  but  the  bene¬ 
diction  is  unaccompanied  with  the  promise  of  tranquillity. 
He  found,  indeed,  a  patron  in  “His  Highness,  Richard 
Lord  Protector,”  whose  rule  he  acknowledged  as  lawful, 
though  he  had  denied  the  authority  of  his  father.  Ad¬ 
dressing  that  wise  and  amiable  man,  “I  observe,”  he  says, 
that  the  nation  generally  rejoice  in  your  peaceable  entrance 
upon  the  government.  Many  are  persuaded  that  you  have 
been  strangely  kept  from  participating  in  any  of  our  late 
bloody  contentions,  that  God  might  make  you  the  healer 
of  our  breaches,  and  employ  you  in  that  temple  work  which 
David  himself  might  not  be  honoured  with,  though  it  was 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


181 


in  his  mind,  because  he  shed  blood  abundantly,  and  made 
great  wars.”  Stronger  minds  and  less  gentle  hearts  than 
that  of  Richard  repelled  with  natural  indignation  counsels 
which  rebuked  all  the  contending  parties.  Amongst  these 
was  “one  Malpas,  an  old  scandalous  minister,”  “and  Ed¬ 
ward  Bagshawe,  a  young  man  who  had  written  formerly 
against  monarchy,  and  afterwards  against  Bishop  Morley, 
and  being  of  a  resolute  Roman  spirit,  was  sent  first  to  the 
Tower,  and  then  lay  in  a  horrid  dungeon;”  and  who  wrote 
a  book  “full  of  untruths,  which  the  furious  temerarious 
man  did  utter  out  of  the  rashness  of  his  mind.”  In  his 
dungeon,  poor  Bagshawe  died,  and  Baxter  closes  the  de¬ 
bate  with  tenderness  and  pathos.  “While  we  wrangle 
here  in  the  dark,  we  are  dying,  and  passing  to  the  world 
that  will  decide  all  our  controversies,  and  the  safest  passage 
thither  is  by  peaceable  holiness.”  Dr.  Owen,  one  of  the 
foremost  in  the  first  rank  of  divines  of  his  age,  had  borne 
much;  but  these  exhortations  to  concord  he  could  not  bear; 
and  he  taught  his  monitor,  that  he  who  undertakes  to  re¬ 
concile  enemies  must  be  prepared  for  the  loss  of  friends. 
It  was  on  every  account  a  desperate  endeavour.  Baxter 
was  opposed  to  every  sect,  and  belonged  to  none.  He  can 
be  properly  described  only  as  a  Baxterian — at  once  the 
founder  and  the  single  disciple  of  an  eclectic  school,  within 
the  portals  of  which  he  invited  all  men,  but  persuaded 
none,  to  take  refuge  from  their  mutual  animosities. 

Had  Baxter  been  content  merely  to  establish  truth,  and 
to  decline  the  refutation  of  error,  many  might  have  listened 
to  a  voice  so  earnest,  and  to  counsels  so  profound.  But, 
“  while  he  spoke  to  them  of  peace,  he  made  him  ready  for 
battle.”  Ten  volumes,  many  of  them  full-grown  quartos, 
vindicated  his  secession  from  the  Church  of  England. 
Five  other  batteries,  equally  well  served,  were  successively 
opened  against  the  Antinomians,  the  Quakers,  the  Baptists, 
the  Millenarians,  and  the  Grotians.  The  last,  of  whom 
Dodwell  was  the  leader,  typified,  in  the  reign  of  Charles, 
the  divines  who  flourish  at  Oxford  in  the  reign  of  Victoria. 
Long  it  were,  and  not  very  profitable,  to  record  the  events 
of  these  theological  campaigns.  They  brought  into  the 
field  Tillotson,  Stillingfleet,  and  Dodwell.  The  men 
of  learning  were  aided  by  the  men  of  wit.  Under  the 
nom  cle  guerre  of  “  Tilenus  Junior,”  Womack,  the  Bishop 
of  St.  David’s,  had  incurred  Baxter’s  censure  for  his 
16 


182 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


44  abusive,  virulent  accusations  of  the  Synod  of  Dort.”  To 
this  attack  appeared  an  answer,  entitled,  44  The  Examina¬ 
tion  of  Tilenus  before  the  Triers,  in  order  to  his  intended 
settlement  in  the  office  of  a  public  preacher  in  the  com¬ 
monwealth  of  Utopia.”  Among  the  jurors  empannelled 
for  the  trial  of  Tilenus,  are  “  Messrs.  Absolute,”  “  Fata¬ 
lity,”  “  Preterition,”  “Narrow  Grace,  alias  Stint  Grace,” 
“Take  o’  Trust,”  “Know  Little,”  and  “  Dubious,” — the  last 
the  established  soubriquet  for  Richard  Baxter.  But  nei¬ 
ther  smile  nor  sigh  could  be  extorted  from  the  veteran  po¬ 
lemic;  nor,  in  truth,  had  he  much  right  to  be  angry.  If 
not  with  equal  pleasantry,  he  had  with  at  least  equal  free¬ 
dom,  invented  appellations  for  his  opponents; — designating 
Dodwell,  or  his  system,  as  “Leviathan,  absolute,  destruc¬ 
tive  Prelacy,  the  son  of  Abaddon,  Apollyon,  and  not  of 
Jesus  Christ.”  Statesmen  joined  in  the  affray.  Morice, 
Charles’s  first  Secretary  of  State,  contributed  a  treatise;  and 
Lauderdale,  who,  with  all  his  faults,  was  an  accomplished 
scholar,  and  amidst  all  his  inconsistencies,  a  stanch  Pres¬ 
byterian,  accepted  the  dedication  of  one  of  Baxter’s  con¬ 
troversial  pieces,  and  presented  him  with  twenty  guineas. 
The  unvarying  kindness  to  the  persecuted  nonconformist  of 
one  who  was  himself  a  relentless  persecutor,  is  less  strange 
than  the  fact,  that  the  future  courtier  of  Charles  read, 
during  his  imprisonment  at  Windsor,  the  whole  of  Baxter’s 
then  published  works,  and,  as  their  grateful  author  records, 
remembered  them  better  than  himself.  While  the  pens  of 
the  wise,  the  witty,  and  the  great,  were  thus  employed 
against  the  universal  antagonist,  the  Quakers  assailed  him 
with  their  tongues.  Who  could  recognise,  in  the  gentle 
and  benevolent  people  who  now  bear  that  name,  a  trace  of 
their  ancestral  character,  of  which  Baxter  has  left  the  fol¬ 
lowing  singular  record?  “The  Quakers  in  their  shops, 
when  I  go  along  London  Streets,  say,  alas!  poor  man,  thou 
art  yet  in  darkness.  They  have  oft  come  to  the  congrega¬ 
tion,  when  I  had  liberty  to  preach  Christ’s  gospel,  and 
cried  out  against  me  as  a  deceiver  of  the  people.  They 
have  followed  me  home,  crying  out  in  the  streets,  4  the 
day  of  the  Lord  is  coming,  and  thou  shalt  perish  as  a  de¬ 
ceiver.’  They  have  stood  in  the  market-place,  and  under 
my  window,  year  after  year,  crying  to  the  people,  ‘take 
heed  of  your  priests,  they  deceive  your  souls;’  and  if  any 
one  wore  a  lace  or  neat  clothing,  they  cried  out  to  me, 
‘these  are  the  fruits  of  your  ministry.’  ” 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


183 


Against  the  divorce  of  divinity  and  politics,  Baxter  ve¬ 
hemently  protested,  as  the  putting  asunder  of  things  which 
a  sacred  ordinance  had  joined  together.  He  therefore  pub¬ 
lished  a  large  volume,  entitled  “The  Holy  Commonwealth; 
a  Plea  for  the  cause  of  Monarchy,  but  as  under  God  the 
Universal  Monarch.”  Far  better  to  have  roused  against 
himself  all  the  quills  which  had  ever  bristled  on  all  the 
“fretful  porcupines  ”  of  theological  strife.  For,  while  vin¬ 
dicating  the  ancient  government  of  England,  he  hazarded 
a  distinct  avowal  of  opinions,  which,  with  their  patrons, 
were  to  be  proscribed  with  the  return  of  the  legitimate 
Sovereign.  He  taught  that  the  laws  of  England  are  above 
the  king;  that  Parliament  was  his  highest  court,  where  his 
personal  will  and  word  were  not  sufficient  authority.  He 
vindicated  the  war  against  Charles,  and  explained  the  apos¬ 
tolical  principle  of  obedience  to  the  higher  powers  as  ex¬ 
tending  to  the  senate  as  well  as  to  the  emperor.  The 
royal  power  had  been  given  “for  the  common  good,  and 
no  cause  could  warrant  the  king  to  make  the  common¬ 
wealth  the  party  which  he  should  exercise  hostility  against.” 
All  this  was  published  at  the  moment  of  the  fall  of  Richard 
Cromwell.  Amidst  the  multitude  of  answers  which  it  pro¬ 
voked  may  be  especially  noticed  those  of  Harrington,  the 
author  of  the  “Oceana,”  and  of  Edward  Pettit.  “The 
former,”  says  Baxter,  “  seemed  in  a  Bethlehem  rage,  for, 
by  way  of  scorn,  he  printed  half  a  sheet  of  foolish  jests,  in 
such  words  as  idiots  or  drunkards  use,  railing  at  ministers 
as  a  pack  of  fools  and  knaves,  and,  by  his  gibberish  deri¬ 
sion,  persuading  men  that  we  deserve  no  other  answer  than 
such  scorn  and  nonsense  as  beseemeth  fools.  With  most 
insolent  pride,  he  carried  it  as  neither  I  nor  any  ministers  un¬ 
derstood  at  all  what  policy  was;  but  prated  against  we  knew 
not  what,  and  had  presumed  to  speak  against  other  men’s  art, 
which  he  was  master  of,  and  his  knowledge,  to  such  idiots 
as  we,  incomprehensible.”  Pettit  placed  Baxter  in  hell, 
where  Bradshawe  acts  as  president,  and  Hobbes  and 
Neville  strive  in  vain  for  the  crown  which  he  awards  to 
the  nonconformist  for  pre-eminence  of  evil  and  mischief  on 
earth.  “Let  him  come  in,”  exclaims  the  new  Rhadaman- 
thus,  “  and  be  crowned  with  wreaths  of  serpents,  and  chap¬ 
lets  of  adders.  Let  his  triumphant  chariot  be  a  pulpit 
drawn  on  the  wheels  of  cannon  by  a  brace  of  wolves  in 
sheep’s  clothing.  Let  the  ancient  fathers  of  the  Church, 


184 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


whom  out  of  ignorance  he  has  vilified;  the  reverend  and 
learned  prelates,  whom  out  of  pride  and  malice  he  has 
belied,  abused,  and  persecuted;  the  most  righteous  King, 
whose  murder  he  has  justified — let  them  all  be  bound  in 
chains  to  attend  his  infernal  triumph  to  his  4  Saint’s  Ever¬ 
lasting  Rest;’  then  make  room,  scribes  and  pharisees,  hy¬ 
pocrites,  atheists,  and  politicians,  for  the  greatest  rebel  on 
earth,  and  next  to  him  that  fell  from  heaven.”  Nor  was 
this  all.  The  “  Holy  Commonwealth  ”  was  amongst  the 
books  which  the  University  of  Oxford  sentenced  to  the 
flames  which  had  been  less  innocently  kindled  at  the  same 
place  in  a  former  generation,  against  the  persons  of  men 
who  had  dared  to  proclaim  unwelcome  truths.  Morley 
and  many  others  branded  it  as  treason;  and  the  King  was 
taught  to  regard  the  author  as  one  of  the  most  inveterate 
enemies  of  the  royal  authority.  South  joined  in  the  uni¬ 
versal  clamour;  and  Baxter,  in  his  autobiography,  records, 
that  when  that  great  wit  and  author  had  been  called  to 
preach  before  the  King,  and  a  vast  congregation  drawn  to¬ 
gether  by  his  high  celebrity,  he  was  compelled,  after  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  to  desist,  and  to  retire  from  the  pulpit 
exclaiming,  “the  Lord  be  merciful  to  our  infirmities!” 
The  sermon,  which  should  have  been  recited,  was  after¬ 
wards  published,  and  it  appeared  that  the  passage  at  which 
South’s  presence  of  mind  had  failed  him,  was  an  invective 
against  the  “  Holy  Commonwealth.”  After  enduring  for 
ten  years  the  storm  which  his  book  had  provoked,  Baxter 
took  the  very  singular  course  of  publishing  a  revocation, 
desiring  the  world  to  consider  it  as  non  scriptum ; — main¬ 
taining  the  while  the  general  principles  of  his  work,  and 
“  protesting  against  the  judgment  of  posterity,  and  all  others 
that  were  not  of  the  same  time  and  place,  as  to  the  men¬ 
tal  censure  either  of  the  book  or  revocation,  as  being  igno¬ 
rant  of  the  true  reasons  of  them  both,”  We,  therefore, 
who,  for  the  present,  constitute  the  posterity,  against  whose 
rash  judgment  this  protest  was  entered,  should  be  wary  in 
censuring  what,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  not  very  intel¬ 
ligible,  except,  indeed,  as  it  is  not  difficult  to  perceive, 
motives  enough  for  retreating  from  an  unprofitable  strife, 
even  though  the  retreat  could  not  be  very  skilfully  accom¬ 
plished. 

Two  volumes  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  the  first  a  quarto 
of  five  hundred  pages,  the  second  a  less  voluminous  vindi- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


185 


cation  of  its  predecessor,  attest  the  extent  of  Baxter’s  la¬ 
bours  in  this  department  of  theological  literature,  and  the 
stupendous  compass  of  his  reading.  The  authorities  he 
enumerates,  and  from  a  diligent  study  of  which  his  work 
is  drawn,  would  form  a  considerable  library. 

Such  labours  as  those  we  have  mentioned,  might  seem 
to  have  left  no  vacant  space  in  a  life  otherwise  so  actively 
employed.  But  these  books,  and  the  vast  mass  of  unpub¬ 
lished  manuscripts,  are  not  the  most  extensive,  as  they  are 
incomparably  the  least  valuable,  of  the  produce  of  his  soli¬ 
tary  hours. 

With  the  exception  of  Grotius,  Baxter  is  the  first  of  that 
long  series  of  writers  who  have  undertaken  to  establish  the 
truth  of  Christianity,  by  a  systematic  exhibition  of  the  evi¬ 
dence  and  the  arguments  in  favour  of  the  divine  origin  of  our 
faith.  All  homage  to  their  cause,  for  we  devoutly  believe 
it  to  be  the  cause  of  truth  !  Be  it  acknowledged  that  their 
labours  could  not  have  been  declined,  without  yielding  a  tem¬ 
porary  and  dangerous  triumph  to  sophistry  and  presumptuous 
ignorance.  Admit  (as  indeed  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  exag* 
gerate)  their  boundless  superiority  to  their  antagonists  in 
learning,  in  good  faith,  in  sagacity,  in  range  and  depth  of 
thought,  and  in  whatever  else  was  requisite  in  this  momen¬ 
tous  controversy; — concede,  as  for  ourselves  we  delight  to 
confess,  that  they  have  advanced  their  proofs  to  the  utmost 
heights  of  probability  which  by  such  reasonings  it  is  pos¬ 
sible  to  scale; — with  these  concessions  may  not  inconsis* 
tently  be  combined  some  distaste  for  these  inquiries,  and 
some  doubt  of  their  real  value. 

The  sacred  writers  have  none  of  the  timiditv  of  their 

•/ 

modern  apologists.  They  never  sue  for  an  assent  to  their 
doctrines,  but  authoritatively  command  the  acceptance  of 
them.  They  denounce  unbelief  as  guilt,  and  insist  on  faith 
as  a  virtue  of  the  highest  order.  In  their  Catholic  invita¬ 
tions,  the  intellectual  not  less  than  the  social  distinctions  of 
mankind  are  unheeded.  Every  student  of  their  writings 
is  aware  of  these  facts;  but  the  solution  of  them  is  less  com¬ 
monly  observed.  It  is,  we  apprehend,  that  the  Apostolic 
authors  assume  the  existence  in  all  men  of  a  spiritual  dis¬ 
cernment,  enabling  the  mind,  when  unclouded  by  appetite 
or  passion,  to  recognise  and  distinguish  the  Divine  voice, 
whether  uttered  from  within  by  the  intimations  of  con¬ 
science,  or  speaking  from  without  in  the  language  of  in- 

16* 


186 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


spired  oracles.  They  presuppose  that  vigour  of  under¬ 
standing  may  consist  with  feebleness  of  reason;  and  that 
the  power  of  discriminating  between  religious  truths  and 
error  does  not  chiefly  depend  on  the  culture,  or  on  the  ex¬ 
ercise  of  the  mere  argumentative  faculty.  The  especial 
patrimony  of  the  poor  and  the  illiterate — the  Gospel — has 
been  the  stay  of  countless  millions  who  never  framed  a 
syllogism.  Of  the  great  multitudes  whom  no  man  can 
number,  who  before  and  since  the  birth  of  Grotius  have 
lived  in  the  peace,  and  died  in  the  consolations  of  our  faith, 
how  incomparably  few  are  they  whose  convictions  have 
been  derived  from  the  study  of  works  like  his!  Of  the 
numbers  who  have  addicted  themselves  to  such  studies, 
how  small  is  the  proportion  of  those  who  have  brought  to 
the  task  either  learning,  or  leisure,  or  industry  sufficient  to 
enable  them  to  form  an  independent  judgment  on  the  ques¬ 
tions  in  debate!  Called  to  the  exercise  of  a  judicial  func¬ 
tion  for  which  he  is  but  ill  prepared — addressed  by  plead¬ 
ings  on  an  issue  where  his  prepossessions  are  all  but 
unalterable,  bidden  to  examine  evidences  which  he  has 
most  rarely  the  skill,  the  learning,  or  the  leisure  to  verify, 
and  pressed  by  arguments,  sometimes  overstrained,  and 
sometimes  fallacious— he  who  lays  the  foundations  of  his 
faith  in  such  “evidences,”  will  but  too  commonly  end 
either  in  yielding  a  credulous,  and  therefore  an  infirm  as¬ 
sent,  or  by  reposing  in  a  self-sufficient  and  far  more  hazard¬ 
ous  incredulity. 

For  these  reasons,  we  attach  less  value  to  the  long  series 
of  Baxter’s  works  in  support  of  the  foundations  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  faith  than  to  the  rest  of  his  books  which  have  floated  in 
safety  down  the  tide  of  time  to  the  present  day.  Yet  it 
would  be  difficult  to  select,  from  the  same  class  of  writings, 
any  more  eminently  distinguished  by  the  earnest  love  and 
the  fearless  pursuit  of  truth;  or  to  name  an  inquirer  into 
these  subjects  who  possessed  and  exercised  to  a  greater 
extent  the  power  of  suspending  his  long-cherished  opinions, 
and  of  closely  interrogating  every  doubt  by  which  they 
were  obstructed. 

In  his  solicitude  to  sustain  the  conclusions  he  had  so 
laboriously  formed,  Baxter  unhappily  invoked  the  aid  of 
arguments,  which,  however  impressive  in  his  own  days, 
are  answered  in  ours  by  a  smile,  if  not  by  a  sneer.  The 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


187 


sneer,  however,  would  be  at  once  unmerited  and  unwise. 
When  Hale  was  adjudging  witches  to  death,  and  More 
preaching  against  their  guilt,  and  Boyle  investigating  the 
sources  of  their  power,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Baxter 
availed  himself  of  the  evidence  afforded  by  witchcraft  and 
apparitions  in  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  world  of  spirits; 
and  therefore  in  support  of  one  of  the  fundamental  tenets 
of  revealed  religion.  Marvellous,  however,  it  is,  in  running 
over  his  historical  discourse  on  that  subject,  to  find  him  giving 
so  unhesitating  an  assent  to  the  long  list  of  extravagances 
and  nursery  tales  which  he  has  there  brought  together; 
unsupported  as  they  almost  all  are  by  any  proof  that  such 
facts  occurred  at  all,  or  by  any  decorous  pretext  for  refer¬ 
ring  them  to  preternatural  agency.  Simon  Jones,  a  stout¬ 
hearted  and  able-bodied  soldier,  standing  sentinel  at  Wor¬ 
cester,  was  driven  away  from  his  post  by  the  appearance 
of  something  like  a  headless  bear.  A  drunkard  was  warned 
against  intemperance  by  the  lifting  up  of  his  shoes  by  an 
invisible  hand.  One  of  the  witches  condemned  by  Hale 
threw  a  girl  into  fits.  Mr.  Emlin,  a  bystander,  “  suddenly 
felt  a  force  pull  one  of  the  hooks  from  his  breeches,  and, 
while  he  looked  with  wonder  what  had  become  of  it,  the 
tormented  girl  vomited  it  up  out  of  her  mouth.’!  At  the 
house  of  Mr.  Beecham,  there  was  a  tobacco  pipe  which 
had  the  habit  of  “  moving  itself  from  a  shelf  at  the  one  end 
of  the  room  to  a  shelf  at  the  other  end  of  the  room.”  When 
Mr.  Munn,  the  minister,  went  to  witness  the  prodigy,  the 
tobacco  pipe  remained  stationary;  but  a  great  Bible  made  a 
spontaneous  leap  into  his  lap,  and  opened  itself  at  a  passage, 
on  the  hearing  of  which  the  evil  spirit  who  had  possessed 
the  pipe  was  exorcised.  “This  Mr.  Munn  himself  told 
me,  when  in  the  sickness  year,  1665,  1  lived  in  Stockerson 
Hall.  I  have  no  reason  to  suspect  the  veracity  of  a  sober 
man,  a  constant  preacher,  and  a  good  scholar.”  Baxter  was 
credulous  and  incredulous  for  precisely  the  same  reason. 
Possessing  by  long  habit  a  mastery  over  his  thoughts,  such 
as  few  other  men  ever  acquired,  a  single  effort  of  the  will 
was  sufficient  to  exclude  from  his  view  whatever  recollec¬ 
tions  he  judged  hostile  to  his  immediate  purpose.  Every 
prejudice  was  at  once  banished  when  any  debateable  point 
was  to  be  scrutinized;  and,  with  equal  facility,  every  rea¬ 
sonable  doubt  was  exiled  when  his  only  object  was  to  en¬ 
force  or  illustrate  a  doctrine  of  the  truth  of  which  he  was 


188 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


assured.  The  perfect  submission  of  the  will  to  the  reason 
may  belong  to  some  higher  state  of  being  than  ours.  On 
mortal  man  that  gift  is  not  bestowed.  In  the  best  and  the 
wisest,  inclination  will  often  grasp  the  reins  by  which  she 
ought  to  be  guided,  and  misdirect  the  judgment  which  she 
should  obey.  Happy  they,  who,  like  Baxter,  have  so  dis¬ 
ciplined  the  affections,  as  to  disarm  their  temporary  usur¬ 
pation  of  all  its  more  dangerous  tendencies  ! 

Controversies  are  ephemeral.  Ethics,  metaphysics,  and 
political  philosophy  are  doomed  to  an  early  death,  unless 
when  born  of  genius  and  nurtured  by  intense  and  self- 
denying  industry.  Even  the  theologians  of  one  age  must, 
alas!  too  often  disappear  to  make  way  for  those  of  later 
times.  But  if  there  is  an  exception  to  the  general  decree 
which  consigns  man  and  his  intellectual  offspring  to  the 
same  dull  forgetfulness,  it  is  in  favour  of  such  writings  as 
those  which  fill  the  four  folio  volumes  bearing  the  title  of 
44  Baxter’s  Practical  Works.”  Their  appearance  in  twenty- 
three  smart  octavos  is  nothing  short  of  a  profanation.  Hew 
down  the  Pyramids  into  a  range  of  streets,  divide  Niagara 
into  a  succession  of  water  privileges,  but  let  not  the  spirits 
of  the  mighty  dead  be  thus  evoked  from  their  majestic 
shrines  to  animate  the  dwarfish  structures  of  our  bookselling 
generation.  Deposit  one  of  those  gray  folios  on  a  resting- 
place  equal  to  that  venerable  burden,  then  call  up  the  patient 
and  serious  thoughts  which  its  very  aspect  should  inspire, 
and  confess  that,  among  the  writings  of  uninspired  men, 
there  are  none  better  fined  to  awaken,  to  invigorate,  to  en¬ 
large,  or  to  console  the  mind,  which  can  raise  itself  to  such 
celestial  colloquy.  True,  they  abound  in  undistinguishable 
distinctions;  the  current  of  emotion,  when  flowing  most 
freely,  is  but  too  often  obstructed  by  metaphysical  rocks 
and  shallows,  or  diverted  from  its  course  into  some  dialectic 
winding;  one  while  the  argument  is  obscured  by  fervent 
expostulation;  at  another  the  passion  is  dried  up  by  the 
analysis  of  the  ten  thousand  springs  of  which  it  is  com¬ 
pounded;  here  is  a  maze  of  subtleties  to  be  unravelled,  and 
there  a  crowd  of  the  obscurely  learned  to  be  refuted;  the 
unbroken  solemnity  may  shed  some  gloom  on  the  travel¬ 
ler’s  path,  and  the  length  of  the  way  may  now  and  then 
entice  him  to  slumber.  But  where  else  can  be  found  an 
exhibition,  at  once  so  vivid  and  so  chaste,  of  the  diseases 
of  the  human  heart — a  detection  so  fearfully  exact,  of  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


189 


sophistries  of  which  we  are  first  the  voluntary  and  then  the 
unconscious  victims — a  light  thrown  with  such  intensity 
on  the  madness  and  the  wo  of  every  departure  from  the 
rules  of  virtue — a  development  of  those  rules  so  compre¬ 
hensive  and  so  elevated — counsels  more  shrewd  or  more 
persuasive — or  a  proclamation  more  consolatory  of  the  re¬ 
sources  provided  by  Christianity  for  escaping  the  dangers 
by  which  we  are  surrounded — of  the  eternal  rewards  she 
promises — or  of  the  temporal  blessings  she  imparts,  as  an 
earnest  and  a  foretaste  of  them?  “  Lars' ior  hie  carnpis 
sether.”  Charles,  and  Laud,  and  Cromwell,  are  forgotten. 
We  have  no  more  to  do  with  anti-psedobaptism  or  prelacy. 
L’Estrange  and  Morley  disturb  not  this  higher  region;  but 
man  and  his  noblest  pursuits — Deity,  in  the  highest  con¬ 
ceptions  of  his  attributes  which  can  be  extracted  from  the 
poor  materials  of  human  thought — the  world  we  inhabit 
divested  of  the  illusions  which  insnare  us — the  world  to 
which  we  look  forward  bright  with  the  choicest  colours  of 
hope — the  glorious  witnesses,  and  the  Divine  Guide  and 
Supporter  of  our  conflict — throng,  animate,  and  inform 
every  crowded  page.  In  this  boundless  repository,  the 
intimations  of  inspired  wisdom  are  pursued  into  all  their 
bearings  on  the  various  conditions  and  exigencies  of  life, 
with  a  fertility  which  would  inundate  and  overpower  the 
most  retentive  mind,  had  it  not  been  balanced  by  a  method 
and  a  discrimination  even  painfully  elaborate.  Through 
the  vast  accumulation  of  topics,  admonitions,  and  inquiries, 
the  love  of  truth  is  universally  conspicuous.  To  every  pre¬ 
cept  is  appended  the  limitations  it  seems  to  demand.  No 
difficulty  is  evaded.  Dogmatism  is  never  permitted  to 
usurp  the  province  of  argument.  Each  equivocal  term  is 
curiously  defined,  and  each  plausible  doubt  narrowly  ex¬ 
amined.  Not  content  to  explain  the  results  he  has  reached, 
he  exhibits  the  process  by  which  they  were  excogitated, 
and  lays  open  all  the  secrets  of  his  mental  laboratory.  And 
a  wondrous  spectacle  it  is.  Calling  to  his  aid  an  extent  of 
theological  and  scholastic  lore  sufficient  to  equip  a  whole 
college  of  divines,  and  moving  beneath  the  load  with  unen¬ 
cumbered  freedom,  he  expatiates  and  rejoices  in  all  the  in¬ 
tricacies  of  his  way — now  plunging  into  the  deepest  thickets 
of  casuistic  and  psychological  speculation — and  then  emer¬ 
ging  from  them  to  resume  his  chosen  task  of  probing  the 
conscience,  by  remonstrances  from  which  there  is  no  escape 


190 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


— or  of  quickening  the  sluggish  feelings  by  strains  of  ex¬ 
alted  devotion. 

That  expostulations  and  arguments  of  which  almost  all 
admit  the  justice,  and  the  truth  of  which  none  can  disprove, 
should  fail  so  ineffectually  on  the  ear,  and  so  seldom  reach 
the  heart,  is  a  phenomenon  worthy  of  more  than  a  passing 
notice,  and  meriting  an  inquiry  of  greater  exactness  than  it 
usually  receives,  even  from  those  who  profess  the  art  of 
healing  our  spiritual  maladies.  To  resolve  it  “  into  the 
corruption  of  human  nature,”  is  but  to  change  the  formula 
in  which  the  difficulty  is  proposed.  To  affirm  that  a  cor¬ 
rupt  nature  always  gives  an  undue  preponderance  to  the 
present  above  the  future,  is  untrue  in  fact;  for  some  of  our 
worst  passions — avarice,  for  example,  revenge,  ambition, 
and  the  like — chiefly  manifest  their  power  in  the  utter  dis¬ 
regard  of  immediate  privations  and  sufferings,  with  a  view 
to  a  supposed  remote  advantage.  To  represent  the  world 
as  generally  incredulous  as  to  the  reality  of  a  retributive 
stale,  is  to  contradiet  universal  experience,  which  shows 
how  firmly  that  persuasion  is  incorporated  with  the  lan¬ 
guage,  habits,  and  thoughts  of  mankind; — manifesting  itself 
most  distinctly  in  those  great  exigencies  of  life,  when  dis¬ 
guise  is  the  least  practicable.  To  refer  to  an  external 
spiritual  agency,  determining  the  will  to  a  wise  or  a  foolish 
choice,  is  only  to  reproduce  the  original  question  in  another 
form — -what  is  that  structure  or  mechanism  of  the  human 
mind  by  means  of  which  such  influences  operate  to  control 
or  guide  our  volitions?  The  best  we  can  throw  out  as  an 
answer  to  the  problem  is,  that  the  constitution  of  our  frames, 
partly  sensitive  and  partly  rational,  and  corresponding  with 
this  the  condition  of  our  sublunary  existence,  pressed  by 
animal  as  well  as  by  spiritual  wants,  condemns  us  to  a 
constant  oscillation  between  the  sensual  and  the  divine, 
between  the  propensities  which  we  share  with  the  brute 
creation,  and  the  aspirations  which  connect  us  with  the 
author  of  our  being.  The  rational  soul  contemplates  means 
only  in  reference  to  their  ends;  whilst  the  sensuous  nature 
reposes  in  means  alone,  and  looks  no  farther.  Imagina¬ 
tion,  alternately  the  ally  of  each,  most  readily  lends  her 
powerful  aid  to  the  ignobler  party.  Her  golden  hues  are 
more  easily  employed  to  exalt  and  refine  the  grossness  of 
appetite,  than  to  impart  brilliancy  and  allurement  to  ob¬ 
jects  brought  within  the  sphere  of  human  vision  by  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


192 


exercise  of  faith  and  hope.  Her  draperies  are  adjusted 
with  greater  facility,  to  clothe  the  nakedness  and  to  con¬ 
ceal  the  shame  of  those  things  with  which  she  is  most  con- 

<D 

versant;  than  to  embellish  the  forms,  and  add  grace  to  the 
proportions  of  things  obscurely  disclosed  at  few  and  tran¬ 
sient  intervals.  It  is  with  this  formidable  alliance  of  sense 
and  imagination  that  religion  has  to  contend.  Her  aim  is 
to  win  over  to  her  side  that  all-powerful  mental  faculty 
which  usually  takes  part  with  her  antagonist,  and  thus  to 
shed  over  every  step  in  life  the  colours  borrowed  from  its 
ultimate  as  contrasted  with  its  immediate  tendency; — to 
teach  us  to  regard  the  pleasures  and  the  pains  of  our  mortal 
state  in  the  light  in  which  we  shall  view  them  in  our  im¬ 
mortal  existence;  to  make  things  hateful  or  lovely  now, 
according  as  they  impede  or  promote  our  welfare  here¬ 
after.  He  is  a  religious,  or  in  the  appropriate  language  of 
theology,  a  “  regenerate  ”  man,  who,  trained  to  this  dis¬ 
cipline,  habitually  transfers  to  the  means  he  employs,  the 
aversion  or  the  dislike  due  to  the  end  he  contemplates; 
who  discerns  and  loathes  the  poison  in  the  otherwise 
tempting  cup  of  unhallowed  indulgence,  and  perceives  and 
loves  the  medicinal  balm  in  the  otherwise  bitter  draught 
of  hardy  self-denial.  Good  Richard  Baxter  erected  his 
four  folio  volumes  as  a  dam  with  which  to  stay  this  con¬ 
fluent  flood  of  sense  and  imagination,  and  to  turn  aside  the 
waters  into  a  more  peaceful  and  salutary  channel.  When 
their  force  is  correctly  estimated,  it  is  more  reasonable  to 
wonder  that  he  and  his  fellow-labourers  have  succeeded  so 
well,  than  that  their  success  has  been  no  greater* 

On  his  style  as  an  author,  Baxter  himself  is  the  best 
critic.  “  The  commonness  and  the  greatness  of  men’s  ne¬ 
cessity,”  he  says,  “  commanded  me  to  do  any  thing  that  I 
could  for  their  relief,  and  to  bring  forth  some  water  to  cast 
upon  this  fire,  though  I  had  not  at  hand  a  silver  vessel  to 
carry  it  in,  nor  thought  it  the  most  fit.  The  plainest 
words  are  the  most  profitable  oratory  in  the  weightiest 
matters.  Fineness  for  ornament,  and  delicacy  for  delight; 
but  they  answer  not  necessity,  though  sometimes  they 
may  modestly  attend  that  which  answers  it.”  He  wrote 
to  give  utterance  to  a  full  mind  and  a  teeming  spirit.  Pro¬ 
bably  he  never  consumed  forty  minutes  in  as  many  years, 
in  the  mere  selection  and  adjustment  of  words.  So  to 
have  employed  his  time,  would  in  his  judgment  have  been 


192 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


a  sinful-waste  of  that  precious  gift.  “  I  thought  to  have 
acquainted  the  world  with  nothing  but  what  was  the  work 
of  time  and  diligence,  but  my  conscience  soon  told  me  that 
there  was  too  much  of  pride  and  selfishness  in  this,  and  that 
humility  and  self-denial  required  me  to  lay  by  the  affecta¬ 
tion  of  that  style,  and  spare  that  industry  which  tended 
but  to  advance  my  name  with  men,  when  it  hindered  the 
main  work  and  crossed  my  end.”  Such  is  his  own  ac¬ 
count;  and,  had  he  consulted  Quinctilian,  he  could  have 
found  no  better  precept  for  writing  well  than  that  which 
his  conscience  gave  him  for  writing  usefully.  First  of 
all  the  requisites  for  excelling  in  the  art  of  composition, 
as  one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  that  art  in  modern  times, 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  informs  us,  is  “to  have  something  to 
say.”  When  there  are  thoughts  that  burn,  there  never 
will  be  wanting  words  that  breathe.  Baxter’s  language  is 
plain  and  perspicuous  when  his  object  is  merely  to  inform; 
copious  and  flowing  when  he  exhorts;  and  when  he  yields 
to  the  current  of  his  feelings,  it  becomes  redundant  and 
impassioned,  and  occasionally  picturesque  and  graphic. 
There  are  innumerable  passages  of  the  most  touching 
pathos  and  unconscious  eloquence,  but  not  a  single  sen¬ 
tence  written  for  effect.  His  chief  merit  as  an  artist  is, 
that  he  is  perfectly  artless;  and  that  he  employs  a  style  of 
great  compass  and  flexibility,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  de¬ 
monstrate  that  he  never  thought  about  it,  and  as  to  prevent 
the  reader,  so  long  at  least  as  he  is  reading,  from  thinking 
about  it  either. 

The  canons  of  criticism,  which  the  great  Nonconformist 
drew  from  his  conscience,  are,  however,  sadly  inapplicable 
to  verse.  Mr.  James  Montgomery  has  given  his  high 
suffrage  in  favour  of  Baxter’s  poetical  powers,  and  justifies 
his  praise  by  a  few  passages  selected  from  the  rest  with 
equal  tenderness  and  discretion.  It  is  impossible  to  sub¬ 
scribe  to  this  heresy  even  in  deference  to  such  an  autho¬ 
rity;  or  to  resist  the  suspicion  that  the  piety  of  the  critic 
has  played  false  with  his  judgment-  Nothing  short  of  an 
actual  and  plenary  inspiration  will  enable  any  man  who 
composes  as  rapidly  as  he  writes,  to  give  meet  utterance 
to  those  ultimate  secretions  of  the  deepest  thoughts  and 
the  purest  feelings  in  which  the  essence  of  poetry  consists. 
Baxter’s  verses,  which  however  are  not  very  numerous, 
would  be  decidedly  improved  by  being  shorn  of  their 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


193 


rhyme  and  rhythm,  in  which  state  they  would  look  like 
very  devout  and  judicious  prose,  as  they  really  are. 

Every  man  must  and  will  have  some  relief  from  his 
more  severe  pursuits.  His  faithful  pen  attended  Baxter 
in  his  pastime  as  in  his  studies;  and  produced  an  autobio¬ 
graphy,  which  appeared  after  his  death  in  a  large  folio 
volume.  Calamy  desired  to  throw  these  posthumous 
sheets  into  the  editorial  crucible,  and  to  reproduce  them 
in  the  form  of  a  corrected  and  well-arranged  abridgment. 
Mr.  Orme  laments  the  obstinacy  of  the  author’s  literary 
executor,  which  forbade  the  execution  of  this  design.  Few 
who  know  the  book  will  agree  with  him.  A  strange  chaos 
indeed  it  is.  But  Grainger  has  well  said  of  the  writer, 
that  “  men  of  his  size  are  not  to  be  drawn  in  miniature.” 
Large  as  life,  and  finished  to  the  most  minute  detail,  his 
own  portrait,  from  his  own  hand,  exhibits  to  the  curious 
in  such  things  a  delineation,  of  which  they  would  not 
willingly  spare  a  single  stroke,  and  which  would  have  lost 
all  its  force  and  freedom  if  reduced  and  varnished  by  any 
other  limner,  however  practised,  or  however  felicitous. 
There  he  stands,  an  intellectual  giant  as  he  was,  playing 
with  his  quill  as  Hercules  with  the  distaflf,  his  very  sport 
a  labour,  under  which  any  one  but  himself  would  have 
staggered.  Towards  the  close  of  the  first  book  occurs  a 
passage,  which,  though  often  republished,  and  familiar  to 
most  students  of  English  literature,  must  yet  be  noticed  as 
the  most  impressive  record  in  our  own  language,  if  not  in 
any  tongue,  of  the  gradual  ripening  of  a  powerful  mind, 
under  the  culture  of  incessant  study,  wide  experience,  and 
anxious  self-observation.  Mental  anatomy,  conducted  by 
a  hand  at  once  so  delicate  and  so  firm,  and  comparisons  so 
exquisitely  just,  between  the  impressions  and  impulses  of 
youth,  and  the  tranquil  conclusions  of  old  age,  bring  his 
career  of  strife  and  trouble  to  a  close  of  unexpected  and 
welcome  serenity.  In  the  full  maturity  of  such  knowledge 
as  is  to  be  acquired  on  earth,  of  the  mysteries  of  our  mortal 
and  of  our  immortal  existence,  the  old  man  returns  at  last 
for  repose  to  the  elementary  truths,  the  simple  lessons,  and 
the  confiding  affections  of  his  childhood;  and  writes  an 
unintended  commentary,  of  unrivalled  force  and  beauty, 
on  the  inspired  declaration,  that  to  become  as  little  children 
is  the  indispensable,  though  arduous  condition  of  attaining 
to  true  heavenly  wisdom. 

17 


194 


Stephen's  miscellanies. 

To  substitute  for  this  self-portraiture*  any  other  analysis 
of  Baxter’s  intellectual  and  moral  character,  would  indeed 
be  a  vain  attempt.  If  there  be  any  defect  or  error  of  which 
he  was  unconscious,  and  which  he  therefore  has  not  avowed, 
it  was  the  combination  of  an  undue  reliance  on  his  own 
powers  of  investigating  truth,  with  an  undue  distrust  in 
the  result  of  his  inquiries.  He  proposed  to  himself,  and 
executed,  the  task  of  exploring  the  whole  circle  of  the 
moral  sciences,  logic,  ethics,  divinity,  politics,  and  meta¬ 
physics,  and  this  toil  he  accomplished  amidst  public  em¬ 
ployments  of  ceaseless  importunity,  and  bodily  pains  al¬ 
most  unintermitted.  Intemperance  never  assumed  a  more 
venial  form;  but  that  this  insatiate  thirst  for  knowledge 
was  indulged  to  a  faulty  excess,  no  reader  of  his  life,  or 
of  his  works,  can  doubt.  In  one  of  his  most  remarkable 
treatises  “  On  Falsely  Pretended  Knowledge,”  the  dan¬ 
gerous  result  of  indulging  this  omnivorous  appetite  is  pe¬ 
culiarly  remarkable.  Probabilities,  the  only  objects  of 
such  studies,  will  at  length  become  evanescent,  or  scarcely 
perceptible,  when  he  who  holds  the  scales  refuses  to  ad¬ 
just  the  balance,  until  satisfied  that  he  has  laden  each  with 
every  suggestion  and  every  argument  which  can  be  de¬ 
rived  from  every  author  who  has  preceded  him  in  the  same 
inquiries.  Yet  more  hopeless  is  the  search  for  truth, 
when  this  adjustment,  once  made,  is  again  to  be  verified 
as  often  as  any  new  speculations  are  discovered;  and  when 
the  very  faculty  of  human  understanding,  and  the  laws  of 
reasoning,  are  themselves  to  be  questioned  and  examined 
anew  as  frequently  as  doubts  can  be  raised  of  their  adap¬ 
tation  to  their  appointed  ends.  Busied  with  this  immense 
apparatus,  and  applying  it  to  this  boundless  field  of  inquiry, 
Baxter  would  have  been  bewildered  by  his  own  efforts, 
and  lost  in  the  mazes  of  a  universal  skepticism,  but  for 
the  ardent  piety  which  possessed  his  soul,  and  the  ever 
recurring  expectation  of  approaching  death,  which  dissi¬ 
pated  his  ontological  dreams,  and  roused  him  to  the  active 
duties,  and  the  instant  realities  of  life.  Even  as  it  is,  he 
has  left  behind  him  much,  which,  in  direct  opposition  to 
his  own  purpose,  might  cherish  the  belief  that  human  ex¬ 
istence  was  some  strange  chimera,  and  human  knowledge 
an  illusion,  did  it  not  fortunately  happen  that  he  is  tedious 
in  proportion  as  he  is  mystical.  Had  he  possessed  and 
employed  the  wit  and  gaiety  of  Boyle,  there  are  some  of 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


195 


his  writings  to  which  a  place  must  have  been  assigned  in 
the  Index  Expurgatorius  of  Protestantism. 

Amongst  his  contemporaries,  Baxter  appears  to  have 
been  the  object  of  general  reverence,  and  of  as  general  un¬ 
popularity.  His  temper  was  austere  and  irritable,  his  ad¬ 
dress  ungracious  and  uncouth.  While  cordially  admitting 
the  merits  of  each  rival  sect,  he  concurred  with  none,  but 
was  the  common  censor  and  opponent  of  all.  His  own 
opinions  on  church  government  coincided  with  the  later 
judgment,  or,  as  it  should  rather  be  said,  with  the  con¬ 
cessions  of  Archbishop  Usher.  They  adjusted  the  whole 
of  that  interminable  dispute  to  their  mutual  satisfaction  at 
a  conference  which  did  not  last  above  half  an  hour;  for 
each  of  them  was  too  devoutly  intent  on  the  great  objects 
of  Christianity  to  differ  with  each  other  very  widely  as  to 
mere  ritual  observances.  The  contentions  by  which  our 
forefathers  were  agitated  on  these  subjects,  have  now  hap¬ 
pily  subsided  into  a  speculative  and  comparatively  uninte¬ 
resting  debate.  They  produced  their  best,  and  perhaps 
their  only  desirable  result,  in  diffusing  through  the  Church, 
and  amongst  the  people  of  England,  an  indestructible  con¬ 
viction  of  the  folly  of  attempting  to  coerce  the  human 
mind  into  a  servitude  to  any  system  or  profession  of  be¬ 
lief  ;  or  of  endeavouring  to  produce  amongst  men  any  real 
uniformity  of  opinion  on  subjects  beyond  the  cognizance 
of  the  bodily  senses,  and  of  daily  observation.  They  have 
taught  us  all  to  acknowledge  in  practice,  though  some  may 
yet  deny  in  theory,  that  as  long  as  men  are  permitted  to 
avow  the  truth,  the  inherent  diversities  of  their  understand¬ 
ings,  and  of  their  circumstances,  must  impel  them  to  the 
acknowledgment  of  corresponding  variations  of  judgment, 
on  all  questions  which  touch  the  mysteries  of  the  present 
or  of  the  future  life.  If  no  man  laboured  more,  or  with 
less  success,  to  induce  mankind  to  think  alike  on  these 
topics,  no  one  ever  exerted  himself  more  zealously,  or  more 
effectually,  than  did  Richard  Baxter,  both  by  his  life  and 
his  writings,  to  divert  the  world  from  those  petty  disputes 
which  falsely  assume  the  garb  of  religious  zeal,  to  those 
eternal  and  momentous  truths,  in  the  knowledge,  the 
love,  and  the  practice  of  which,  the  essence  of  religion 
consists. 

One  word  respecting  the  edition  of  his  works,  to  which 
we  referred  in  the  outset.  For  the  reason  already  men- 


190 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tioned,  we  have  stuck  to  our  long-revered  folios,  without 
reading  so  much  as  a  page  of  their  diminutive  represen¬ 
tatives,  and  can  therefore  report  nothing  about  them.  But 
after  diligently  and  repeatedly  reading  the  two  introductory 
volumes  by  Mr.  Orme,  we  rejoice  in  the  opportunity  ol 
bearing  testimony  to  the  merits  of  a  learned,  modest,  and 
laborious  writer,  who  is  now,  however,  beyond  the  reach 
of  human  praise  or  censure.  He  has  done  every  thing 
for  Baxter’s  memory  which  could  be  accomplished  by  a 
skilful  abridgment  of  his  autobiography,  and  a  careful 
analysis  of  the  theological  library  of  which  he  was  the 
author;  aided  by  an  acquaintance  with  the  theological  lite¬ 
rature  of  the  seventeenth  century,  such  as  no  man  but 
himself  has  exhibited,  and  which  it  may  safely  be  con¬ 
jectured  no  other  man  possesses.  Had  Mr.  Orme  been  a 
member  of  the  Established  Church,  and  had  he  chosen  a 
topic  more  in  harmony  with  the  studies  of  that  learned 
body,  his  literary  abilities  would  have  been  far  more  cor¬ 
rectly  estimated,  and  more  widely  celebrated.  We  fear 
that  they  who  dissent  from  her  communion,  and /who  are 
therefore  excluded  from  her  universities  and  her  literary 
circles,  are  not  to  expect  for  their  writings  the  same  tole¬ 
ration  which  is  so  firmly  secured  for  their  persons  and 
their  ministry.  Let  them  not,  however,  be  dejected.  Let 
them  take  for  examples  those  whom  they  have  selected  as 
teachers;  and  learning  from  Richard  Baxter  to  live  and  to 
write,  they  will  either  achieve  his  celebrity,  or  will  be 
content,  as  he  was,  to  labour  without  any  other  recom¬ 
pense  than  the  tranquillity  of  his  own  conscience,  the  love 
of  the  people  among  whom  he  dwelt,  and  the  approbation 
of  the  Master  to  whom  every  hour  of  his  life,  and  every 
page  of  his  books,  were  alike  devoted. 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE.* 


(Edinburgh  Review,  1840.) 


In  a  series  of  volumes  of  later  birth  than  that  from  which 
the  author  of  the  “  Natural  History  of  Enthusiasm  ”  takes 
the  title  of  his  literary  peerage,  he  has  bent  his  strength  to 
the  task  of  revealing  to  itself  the  generation  to  which  he 
belongs.  A  thankless  office  that  of  the  censorship!  A  for¬ 
midable  enterprise  this,  to  rebuke  the  errors  of  a  contentious 
age,  while  repelling  the  support  of  each  of  the  contending 
parties!  To  appease  the  outraged  self-complacency  of  man¬ 
kind,  such  a  monitor  will  be  cited  before  a  tribunal  far  more 
relentless  than  his  own.  Heedless  both  of  contumely  and 
of  neglect,  he  must  pursue  his  labours  in  reliance  on  him¬ 
self  and  on  his  cause;  or,  if  fame  be  the  reward  to  which 
he  aspires,  he  must  content  himself  with  the  anticipation  of 
posthumous  renown.  It  is  not,  however,  easy  for  the  as¬ 
pirant  himself  to  find  the  necessary  aliment  for  such  hopes. 
The  writer  of  these  works  will  therefore  indulge  us  in  a 
theory  invented  for  the  aid  of  his  and  our  own  imagination. 
Let  it  be  supposed,  that,  instead  of  yet  living  to  instruct  the 
world,  he  was  now  engaged  in  bringing  to  the  test  of  ex¬ 
periment  his  own  speculations  as  to  the  condition  of  mankind 
in  the  future  state.  He  re-appears  amongst  sublunary  men 
under  the  auspices  of  some  not  unfriendly  editor;  who,  how¬ 
ever,  being  without  any  other  sources  of  intelligence  re¬ 
specting  his  course  of  life  and  studies,  has  diligently  searched 
his  books  for  such  intimations  as  may  furnish  the  materials 
for  a  short  “Introductory  Notice”  of  him  and  of  them. 
The  compiler  is  one  of  those  who  prefer  the  positive  to  the 
conjectural  style  of  recounting  matters  of  fact;  and  has  as¬ 
sumed  the  freedom  of  throwing  into  the  form  of  unqualified 

*  Physical  Theory  of  Another  Life.  By  the  Author  of  u  Natural 
History  of  Enthusiasm.”  8vo.  London,  1839. 

17* 


i  98 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


assertion  the  inferences  he  had  gleaned  from  detached  pas¬ 
sages  of  the  volumes  he  is  about  to  republish.  With  the 
help  of  this  slight  and  not  very  improbable  hypothesis,  the 
author  of  these  works,  while  still  remaining  amongst  us, 
may  suppose  himself  to  be  reading,  in  some  such  lines  as 
the  following,  the  sentence  which  the  critic  of  a  future  day 
will  pass  on  his  literary  character. 

One  of  those  seemingly  motionless  rivers  which  wind 
their  way  through  the  undulating  surface  of  England,  creeps 
round  the  outskirts  of  a  long  succession  of  buildings,  half 
town,  half  village,  where  the  monotony  of  the  wattled  cot¬ 
tages  is  relieved  by  the  usual  neighbourhood  of  structures 
of  greater  dignity; — the  moated  grange — the  mansion-house, 
pierced  by  lines  of  high  narrow  windows — the  square  tower 
of  the  church,  struggling  through  a  copse  of  lime  trees — • 
the  gray  parsonage,  where  the  conservative  rector  meditates 
his  daily  newspaper  and  his  weekly  discourse— -the  barn- 
fashioned  meeting-house,  coeval  with  the  accession  of  the 
House  of  Hanover — and  near  it  the  decent  residence,  in 
which,  since  that  auspicious  era,  have  dwelt  the  successive 
pastors  of  that  wandering  flock — fanning  a  generous  spirit 
of  resistance  to  tyrants,  now  happily  to  be  encountered  only 
in  imagination,  or  in  the  records  of  times  long  since  passed 
away.  * 

Towards  the  close  of  the  last  century,  a  mild  and  vene¬ 
rable  man  ruled  his  household  in  that  modest  but  not  un¬ 
ornamented  abode;  for  there  might  be  seen  the  solemn 
portraits  of  the  original  confessors  of  Nonconformity,  with 
many  a  relic  commemorative  of  their  sufferings  and  their 
worth.  Contrasted  with  these  were  the  lighter  and  varied 
embellishments  which  bespeak  the  presence  of  refined 
habits,  female  taste,  and  domestic  concord.  There  also 
were  drawn  up,  in  deep  files,  the  works  and  the  biogra¬ 
phies  of  the  Puritan  divines,  from  Thomas  Cartwright,  the 
great  antagonist  of  Whitgift,  to  Matthew  Pool,  who,  in  his 
Synopsis  Criticorum,  vindicated  the  claims  of  the  rejected 
ministers  to  profound  Biblical  learning.  This  veteran  bat¬ 
talion  was  flanked  by  a  company  of  recruits  drafted  from 
the  polite  literature  of  a  more  frivolous  age.  Rich  in  these 
treasures,  and  in  the  happy  family  with  whom  he  shared 
them,  the  good  man  would  chide  or  smile  away  such  clouds 
as  checkered  his  habitual  serenity,  when  those  little  name¬ 
less  courtesies,  so  pleasantly  interchanged  between  equals, 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


199 


were  declined  by  the  orthodox  incumbent,  or  accepted  with 
elaborate  condescension  by  the  wealthy  squire.  The  demo¬ 
cratic  sway  of  the  ruling  elders,  supreme  over  the  finances 
and  the  doctrines  of  the  chapel,  failed  to  draw  an  audible 
sigh  from  his  resolute  spirit,  even  when  his  more  delicate 
sense  was  writhing  under  wounds  imperceptible  to  their 
coarser  vision.  He  had  deliberately  made  his  choice,  and 
was  content  to  pay  the  accustomed  penalties.  A  sectarian 
in  name,  he  was  at  heart  a  catholic,  generous  enough  to 
feel  that  the  insolence  of  some  of  his  neighbours,  and  the 
vulgarity  of  others,  were  rather  the  accidents  of  their  posi¬ 
tion  than  the  vices  of  their  character.  Vexations  such  as 
these  were  beneath  the  regard  of  him  who  maintained  in 
the  village  the  sacred  cause  for  which  martyrs  had  sacrificed 
life  with  all  its  enjoyments;  and  who  aspired  to  train  up  his 
son  to  the  same  honourable  service,  ill  requited  as  it  was 
by  the  glory  or  the  riches  of  this  transitory  world. 

That  hope,  however,  was  not  to  be  fulfilled.  The  youth 
had  inherited  his  father’s  magnanimity,  his  profound  devo¬ 
tion,  his  freedom  of  thought,  and  his  thirst  for  knowledge. 
But  he  disclaimed  the  patrimony  of  his  father’s  ecclesias¬ 
tical  opinions.  His  was  not  one  of  those  minds  which 
adjust  themselves  to  whatever  mould  early  habits  may  have 
prepared  for  them.  It  was  compounded  of  elements,  be¬ 
tween  which  there  are  no  apparent  affinities,  but  the  re¬ 
verse;  and  which,  for  that  reason,  produce  in  their  occa¬ 
sional  and  infrequent  combination,  a  character  substantive, 
individual,  and  strongly  discriminated  from  that  of  other 
men.  Shrinking  from  the  coarse  familiarities  of  the  world, 
he  thirsted  for  the  world’s  applause — at  once  a  very  liber¬ 
tine  in  the  unfettered  exercise  of  his  own  judgment,  and  a 
very  worshipper .  of  all  legitimate  authority — alternately 
bracing  his  nerves  for  theological  strife,  and  dissolving 
them  in  romantic  dreams — now  buried  in  the  depths  of  re¬ 
tirement,  that  he  might  plunge  deeper  still  into  the  solitudes 
of  his  own  nature;  and  then  revealing  his  discoveries  in  a 
style  copied  from  the  fashionable  models  of  philosophical 
oratory; — the  young  man  of  whom  we  tell  might  be  de¬ 
scribed  as  a  sensitive  plant  grafted  on  a  Norwegian  pine, 
as  a  Spartan  soldier  enamoured  of  the  Idylls  of  Theocritus, 
or  as  an  anchorite  studious  of  the  precepts  of  the  cosmetic 
Earl  of  Chesterfield.  Nature  and  accident  combined  to 
produce  this  contrast;  integrity  and  truth  gradually  blended 


200 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


it  into  one  harmonious,  though  singular  whole.  The  ro¬ 
bust  structure  of  his  understanding  might  have  rendered 
him  a  rude  dogmatist,  if  the  delicate  texture  of  his  sensitive 
or  spiritual  frame  had  not  forbidden  every  approach  of  ar¬ 
rogance.  Exploring  with  intrepid  diligence  the  great 
questions  debated  amongst  men  regarding  their  eternal  in¬ 
terests,  he  recoiled  with  disgust  from  the  unmannerly 
habits,  the  sordid  passions,  and  the  petty  jealousies  which 
proclaim,  but  too  loudly,  that  while  we  dispute  about  the 
path  to  heaven,  we  are  still  treading  the  miry  ways  of  this 
uncelestial  world.  Angelic  abodes,  and  holy  abstractions, 
and  universal  love,  were  the  alluring  themes  ;  but,  handled 
as  they  were  by  polemics  in  the  language  of  Dennis,  and 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Dunciad,  our  theological  student  was 
sometimes  tempted  to  wish  that  the  day  on  which  he  was 
initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  the  Hornbook  might  be  blotted 
from  the  calendar.  Thrown  into  early  association  with  the 
depressed  and  less  prosperous  party  in  the  ecclesiastical 
quarrels  of  his  native  land,  the  asperities  of  the  contest 
presented  themselves  to  his  inquisitive  and  too  susceptible 
eye,  unmitigated  by  the  graceful  and  well-woven  veil,  be^ 
neath  which  sophistry  and  rancour  can  find  a  specious 
disguise  when  allied  to  rank  and  fortune  and  other  social 
distinctions.  Episcopal  charges  and  congregational  pam¬ 
phlets  might  vie  with  each  other  in  bitterness  and  wrong; 
but  there  rested  with  the  mitred  disputant  an  unquestiona¬ 
ble  advantage  in  the  grace  and  dignity  and  seeming  com¬ 
posure  with  which  he  inflicted  pain  and  quickened  the  ap¬ 
petite  for  revenge.  By  the  unsullied  moral  sense  of  the 
young  divine,  either  form  of  malevolence  might  be  equally 
condemned ;  but  to  his  fastidious  taste  the  ruder  aspect 
which  it  bore  amongst  the  advocates  of  dissent  was  by  far 
the  more  offensive. 

Feelings  painfully  alive  to  the  ungraceful  and  the  homely 
in  human  character,  invariably  indicate  an  absence  of  the 
higher  powers  of  imagination.  To  a  great  painter  the 
countenance  of  no  man  is  entirely  devoid  of  beauty.  To 
one  worthy  of  the  much  prostituted  name  of  poet,  no  forms 
of  society  are  without  their  interest  and  their  charm.  But 
he  whom  the  gods  have  not  made  poetical  may  be  kind- 
hearted  and  wise,  and  even  possessed  by  many  a  brilliant 
fancy,  and  by  many  a  noble  aspiration;  and  so  it  fared  with 
this  scion  of  a  Nonconformist  race.  From  the  coarseness 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


201 


of  a  spiritual  democracy,  from  the  parsimonious  simplicity 
of  their  sacred  edifices,  from  the  obtrusive  prominence  ot 
the  leaders  of  their  worship,  and  from  their  seeming  iso¬ 
lation  in  the  midst  of  the  great  Christian  commonwealth, 
his  thoughts  turned  to  those  more  august  communions, 
where  the  splendours  of  earth  symbolize  the  hierarchies  oi^ 
heaven — where  the  successors  in  an  unbroken  lineage  ot 
apostles  and  martyrs  are  yet  ministering  at  the  altar 
where  that  consecrated  shrine  echoes  to  the  creeds  and  the 
supplications  of  the  first  converts  to  the  faith — and  where 
alone  can  flourish  those  arduous  but  unobtrusive  virtues,  oi 
which  an  exact  subordination  of  ranks  forms  the  indispen¬ 
sable  basis.  Already  half-diverted  by  such  yearnings  as 
these  from  his  hereditary  standard,  his  return  to  the  em¬ 
brace  of  the  Episcopal  Church  was  further  aided  by  a 
morbid  dislike,  unworthy  of  his  powerful  intellect,  of  fall¬ 
ing  into  commonplace  trains  of  thought  or  language.  Edu¬ 
cated  in  a  body  through  which  religious  opinions  and  pious 
phrases  but  too  lightly  circulate,  his  instinctive  dread  of 
vulgarity  led  him  into  speculations  where  such  associates 
would  be  shaken  off,  and  to  the  use  of  a  style  such  as  was 
never  employed  by  the  dwellers  in  tabernacles.  Of  a  na¬ 
ture  the  most  unaffected,  and  irreproachably  upright  in  the 
search  of  truth,  he  conducted  his  inquiries  with  such 
elaborate  fineness  of  speech,  and  with  such  a  fear  of  acqui¬ 
escing  in  the  bare  creed  of  the  school  in  which  he  had  been 
bred,  that  his  fellow-scholars  must  have  formed  an  unjust 
estimate  of  their  companion,  had  he  not  been  withdrawn 
in  early  life  to  other  associations,  and  to  far  different  stu¬ 
dies  from  those  which  they  had  pursued  in  common.  From 
his  parental  village,  the  future  author  was  transferred  to  the 
remote  and  busy  world  in  which  our  English  youth  are  in¬ 
structed  in  the  unjoyous  science  of  special  pleading,  and 
trained  for  the  dignities  of  the  Coif. 

By  the  unlearned  in  such  matters,  more  distinct  evidence 
of  this  passage  in  his  life  may  perhaps  be  demanded  than 
the  indications  which  his  writings  afford  of  a  technical  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  the  law.  But  every  “free  and  accepted 
brother”  of  the  craft  will  recognise,  in  his  frequent  and  cu¬ 
riously  exact  use  of  forensic  language,  a  confidence  and  a 
skill  which  belong  only  to  the  acolite  in  those  studies. 
That  the  Term  Reports  would  be  searched  in  vain  for 
specimens  of  his  dialectic  powers  may,  however,  be  readily 


202 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


believed.  Thurlow  had  as  little  to  fear  from  the  rivalry  of 
the  author  of  the  “Task,”  as  Lord  Cottenham  from  that 
of  the  author  of  the  “  Natural  History  of  Enthusiasm.” 
Westminster  Hall  is  no  theatre  to  be  trodden  by  men  of 
pensive  spirits,  delicate  nerves,  and  high-wrought  sensibili¬ 
ties.  It  is  to  England  what  the  plain  of  Elis  was  to  Greece; 
and  when  a  Pindar  shall  arise  to  celebrate  the  triumphs 
achieved  there,  he  must  sing  of  heroes  who  have  rejoiced 
in  the  dust  and  sweat  and  turmoil  of  the  strife,  of  men  of 
thick  skins  and  robust  consciences,  buoyant  and  fearless, 
prompt  in  resources,  and  unscrupulous  in  the  use  of  them. 
Far  otherwise  the  original  of  the  portrait,  so  vividly  yet  so 
unconsciously  self-drawn  in  these  volumes.  Every  linea¬ 
ment  tells  of  one  incapable  of  lending  himself  to  any  wilful 
sophistry — of  a  man  rich  both  in  knowledge  and  in  power, 
though  destitute  of  that  quiet  energy  which  in  judicial  tri¬ 
bunals,  finds  appropriate  utterance  in  the  simplest  combi¬ 
nations  of  the  plainest  words — of  a  mind  banqueting  on 
contemplations  most  abhorrent  from  those  of  the  peremp¬ 
tory  paper.  Not,  however,  “the  worst  of  all  his  ills,  the 
noisy  bar.”  Political  strife  shed  a  repulsive  gloom  over 
the  other  halls  of  the  ancient  Palace  of  Westminster.  The 
whole  tribe  of  party  writers,  diurnal  and  hebdomadal, 
overshadowed  his  path,  like  a  flight  of  obscene  birds,  pol¬ 
luting  by  their  touch  and  distracting  by  their  dissonance 
those  researches  into  the  interests  of  the  commonwealth 
and  the  duties  of  her  chiefs,  to  which  he  desired  to  ad¬ 
dress  a  serene  and  unbiassed  judgment.  His  heart  assured, 
and  his  observation  convinced  him,  that  not  merely  the 
leaders,  but  even  the  subalterns  of  contending  factions,  were 
far  wiser  and  better  men  than  they  appeared  in  those 
clever,  reckless,  and  malignant  sketches  thrown  off  from 
day  to  day  by  writers  condemned  to  lives  of  ceaseless  ex¬ 
citement,  and  excluded  from  the  blessings  of  leisure  and  of 
self-communion. 

It  is  an  old  tale.  Our  author  bade  the  town  farewell, 
yet  in  a  spirit  far  different  from  that  of  the  injured  Thales. 
He  had  no  wrongs,  real  or  imaginary,  to  resent,  nor  one 
sarcasm  for  the  great  city  in  which  he  had  faintly  wooed 
the  smiles  of  fortune.  With  a  mind  as  tranquil  as  the 
rural  scenes  to  which  he  retired,  he  sought  there  leisure 
for  many  an  unworldly  and  for  some  whimsical  specula- 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


203 


tions,  with  a  resting-place  for  the  household  and  the  library 
which  divided  his  heart  between  them. 

A  topographical  catalogue  of  the  books  which  a  man  has 
collected  and  arranged  for  his  own  delight,  will  lay  open 
some  of  the  recesses  of  his  bosom  as  clearly  as  ever  the 
character  of  courtier  or  cavalier  was  sketched  by  the  pen 
of  Clarendon. 

In  the  chamber  where  our  recluse  held  his  reign,  the 
monarch  of  many  a  well  peopled  province,  giving  audience 
in  turn  to  each  of  his  many-tongued  subjects,  and  exacting 
from  them  all  tribute  at  his  pleasure,  might  be  seen,  supreme 
in  place  and  favour,  a  venerable  copy  of  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  scriptures.  A  troop  of  tall,  sad-coloured  folios, 
the  depositaries  of  the  devout  studies  and  anxious  self¬ 
searchings  of  the  puritan  divines,  was  drawn  up  on  shelves 
within  reach  of  his  outstretched  arm.  With  but  little  addi¬ 
tional  effort  it  encountered  a  tribe  of  more  lofty  discourse, 
bred  in  the  sacred  solitudes  of  Port-Royal,  yet  redolent  of 
the  passion  of  their  native  land  for  an  imposing  and  graceful 
demeanour.  Honest  George  Latimer,  with  a  long  line  of 
Episcopal  and  Episcopalian  successors,  held  a  position  a 
little  ostentatiously  prominent,  accorded  to  them  not  merely 
from  their  own  unrivalled  worth  and  beauty,  but  also  per¬ 
haps  from  the  wish  of  the  autocrat  to  avow  their  influence 
over  him.  But  the  main  power  of  his  state  consisted  in  a 
race  of  ancient  lineage  and  obsolete  tongues,  beginning  with 
Clement,  Justin,  and  Irenseus,  and  so  onward  through  the 
long  series  of  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers,  ecclesiastical  his¬ 
torians,  acts  of  councils  and  of  saints,  decretals,  missals, 
and  liturgies,  all  in  turn  casting  their  transient  lights  and 
their  deep  shadows  over  the  checkered  fortunes  of  the 
Christian  Church.  Brought  within  the  precincts  of  this 
wide  dominion,  Homer,  iEschylus,  Dante,  Shakspeare,  and 
the  humbler  partakers  of  their  inspiration,  awaited  at  some 
distance  the  occasional  summons  of  this  mighty  potentate. 
But  in  their  reverend  aspect  might  be  perceived  something, 
which  confessed  that  they  were  not  amongst  his  chosen 
and  habitual  companions.  Court  favour  here,  as  elsewhere, 
seemed  to  be  capricious  in  proportion  as  it  was  diffusive; 
and  writers  on  physiology,  astronomy,  plants,  insects,  birds, 
and  fishes,  shared  with  metaphysicians,  moralists,  and  the 
writers  of  civil  history,  the  hours  occasionally  withdrawn 
by  their  master  from  more  serious  intercourse  with  his  apos- 


204 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tolic,  patristic,  papal,  and  reformed  counsellors.  In  short, 
it  was  one  of  those  rooms  which  he  who  can  securely  pos¬ 
sess,  quietly  enjoy,  and  wisely  use,  may,  in  sober  truth, 
pity  the  owners  of  Versailles  and  the  Escurial. 

Wise  men  read  books  that  they  may  learn  to  read  them¬ 
selves,  and  for  this  purpose  quit  their  libraries  for  the  open 
air.  The  heath,  the  forest  or  the  river-side,  is  the  true 
academy.  There  the  student,  with  no  kind  neighbour  to 
dissipate  his  thoughts,  and  with  no  importunate  author  to 
chain  them  down,  casts  them  into  such  forms  of  soliloquy 
or  dialogue,  of  verse  or  prose,  as  bests  suits  the  humour  or 
the  duties  of  the  passing  day.  This  peripatetic  discipline 
is  best  observed  under  cover  of  an  angling  rod,  a  bill  hook, 
or  a  gun;  for  then  may  not  the  vicar  or  the  major,  without 
an  evident  breach  of  privilege,  detain  you  on  the  county- 
rate  question,  nor  may  the  gentler  voice  of  wife  or  daugh¬ 
ter  upbraid  you  with  the  sad  list  of  your  unrequited  visits. 
Besides,  your  country  philosopher  flatters  himself  that  in 
hooking  a  trout,  or  flushing  a  pheasant,  his  eye  is  as  true 
and  his  hand  as  steady  as  those  of  the  squire;  and  from  this 
amiable  weakness  the  historian  of  enthusiasm  would  seem 
not  to  have  been  quite  exempt.  Emerging  from  his  library 
as  one  resolved  to  bring  home  some  score  head  of  game, 
his  stout  purposes  would  gradually  die  away  as  he  reached 
the  brook,  w’hose  windings  were  oddly  associated  in  his 
mind  with  various  theories  by  which  the  world  was  one 
day  to  be  enlightened,  and  with  many  half-conceived  chap¬ 
ters  of  essays  yet  to  be  written.  To  meditate  on  the  ad¬ 
vantages  of  meditation,  was  on  these  occasions  one  of  his 
chosen  exercises;  and,  in  the  ornate  style  to  which  he  was 
wedded,  he  would  muse  on  those  in  whom  “  the  intellectual 
life  is  quick  in  all  its  parts.”  “It  is,”  he  would  say,  “as 
when  the  waters  of  a  lake  are  left  to  deposite  their  feculence 
and  to  become  pure  as  the  ether  itself,  so  that  they  not 
only  reflect  from  their  surface  the  splendours  of  heaven,  but 
allow  the  curious  eye  to  gaze  delighted  upon  the  decorated 
grottoes  and  sparkling  caverns  of  the  depth  beneath.  Or 
might  we  say,  that  the  ground  of  the  human  heart  is  thickly 
fraught  with  seeds  which  never  germinate  under  either  a 
wintry  or  a  too  fervent  sky;  but  let  the  dew  come  gently 
on  the  ground,  and  let  mild  suns  warm  it,  and  let  it  be 
guarded  against  external  rudeness,  and  we  shall  see  spring 
up  the  gaiety  and  fragrance  of  a  garden.  The  Eden  of 


PHYSICAL  THEORY"  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


205 


human  nature  has  indeed  long  been  trampled  down  and 
desolated  and  storms  waste  it  continually;  nevertheless  the 
soil  is  still  rich  with  the  germs  of  its  pristine  beauty,  the 
colours  of  paradise  are  sleeping  in  the  clods,  and  a  little 
favour,  a  little  protection,  a  little  culture,  shall  show  what 
once  was  there.  Or,  if  we  look  at  the  human  spirit  in  its 
relation  to  futurity,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  as  an  im¬ 
mortality  of  joy  is  its  proper  destiny,  so  it  is  moved  by 
instincts  which  are  the  true  prognostics  of  eternal  life. 
Earthly  passions  quench  these  fore-scents  of  happiness,  but 
meditation  fosters  them;  and  the  life  of  the  religious  recluse 
is  a  delicious  anticipation  of  pleasures  that  shall  have  no 
end.’  ’ 

Strange  that  one  who  justly  claimed  a  high  station  among 
the  bold  and  original  thinkers  of  his  times,  should  have 
woven  this  tissue  of  brave  words,  and  should  have  decked 
his  most  elaborate  inquiries  with  countless  posies  as  garish 
as  these!  But  the  key  to  the  riddle  has  already  been  given. 
Could  notes  have  been  struck  less  in  unison  with  the  Can¬ 
tilena  of  the  meeting-house?  Could  any  have  been  touched 
better  fitted  to  charm  those  dear  but  dangerous  judges,  who 
in  winter  evenings  listen  to  a  revered  and  familiar  voice 
reciting  passages,  which  still  glow  in  their  and  in  his  own 
too  partial  eyes  with  all  the  freshness  of  creation?  Has 
not  the  immutable  decree  gone  forth,  that  though  he  whose 
home  is  secure  from  the  invasions  of  the  world  may  write 
excellently  upon  home  education,  he  must  watch  jealously 
against  home  criticism?  And  yet  an  English  gentleman  of 
our  railway  age,  who  had  devoted  himself  to  an  anchorite 
life,  might  with  some  reason  insist  that  the  fruits  he  had 
gathered  for  the  use  of  other  secluded  households  could  be 
brought  to  no  better  test  than  the  good  or  ill-liking  of  the 
companions  of  his  own  retreat.  To  betake  himself,  as  our 
author  was  wont  to  do,  '‘to  some  valley  of  silence,”  and 
there,  as  he  expressed  it,  to  “  accumulate  a  rich  treasure  of 
undefined  sentiments  and  indistinct  conceptions,”  was  to 
indulge  in  a  diet  at  once  intoxicating  and  unnutritious.  The 
juices  of  his  mental  frame  would  have  been  altogether  at¬ 
tenuated  by  thus  feeding  on  bright  unutterable  day-dreams 
about  the  microcosm  within  him;  or  the  unembodied  spirits 
who  surrounded  him;  or  the  physical  structure  of  the  para¬ 
dise  he  hoped  to  regain;  or  any  thing  else,  so  long  as  it 
was  but  foreign  to  the  pursuits,  the  cares,  and  the  interests 
18 


206 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


of  the  world  in  which  he  lived.  But  then  would  succeed 
the  cheerful  fire-side  talk,  which  compelled  him  to  become 
intelligible  to  others  and  to  himself.  What  Plato  meant  in 
many  of  his  discourses,  no  one,  with  reverence  be  it  spo¬ 
ken,  has  ever  very  clearly  discovered;  but  who  would  have 
found  courage  to  make  the  attempt,  but  for  those  bright  fic¬ 
tions  which  bring  the  reader  into  a  colloquial  party,  where 
much  of  the  gaseous  matter  which  must  otherwise  have 
exhaled  into  an  impalpable  mist,  is  fixed  and  brought  within 
the  range  of  human  perception  by  the  necessities  of  the  dia¬ 
logue.  Even  so,  our  modern  speculator,  after  soaring  “  into 
that  wide  and  uncircumscribed  sphere  wherein  spirits  ex¬ 
cursive  and  philosophically  modest  take  their  range,”  and 
gathering  there,  “  if  not  certain  and  irrefragable  conclusions, 
at  least  scattered  particles  of  wisdom,  which  he  more  highly 
esteemed  than  all  the  stamped  coinage  whereof  dogmatism 
makes  its  boast,”  would  make  his  way  home  again,  and 
explain  himself  to  an  audience  which  Socrates  might  have 
envied.  There,  condescending  to  enter  “  within  that  bound¬ 
ed  circle  of  things  which  may  be  measured  on  all  sides  and 
categorically  spoken  of,”  he  would  exhibit  the  inbred  vigour 
of  his  understanding,  quickened  and  guided  by  the  native 
kindness  of  his  heart.  Had  he  not  been  a  husband  and 
a  father,  he  would  have  been  a  mystic.  His  interior  life 
would  have  degenerated  into  one  protracted  and  unsubstan¬ 
tial  vision,  if  his  house  had  not  echoed  to  a  concert  of  young 
voices  executing  all  manner  of  sprightly  variations  on  the 
key-notes  sounded  by  his  own.  His  “  free  converse  with 
truth  and  reason  in  the  sanctuary  of  his  own  bosom,”  would 
have  been  held  in  that  incommunicable  language  which  rea¬ 
son  was  never  yet  able  to  understand,  if  his  free  converse 
with  his  boys  and  girls  had  not  habitually  admonished  him 
that  the  sublime  in  words  may  be  easily  combined  with  the 
beautiful  in  sentences,  without  the  slightest  advantage  to 
the  author  of  the  spell  or  to  any  one  else.  After  musing 
on  the  compromise  of  antagonist  principles  throughout  uni¬ 
versal  nature,  he  was  thus  taught  the  necessity  for  recon¬ 
ciling  the  hostile  propensities  of  his  own  bosom — the  one 
beckoning  him  to  tread  the  dizzy  confines  which  separate 
the  transcendental  from  the  nonsensical,  the  other  inviting 
him  to  drag  the  river  with  his  sons,  or  to  read  L’Allegro  to 
his  daughters.  Peace  was  concluded  on  better  terms  for 
the  father  than  the  visionary.  Each  passing  year  found 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


207 


him  a  plainer-spoken  man,  more  alive  to  sublunary  thoughts, 
and  more  engaged  in  active  duties.  Yet  to  the  last,  like 
some  of  the  great  painters  of  his  day,  he  eschewed  trans¬ 
parent  lights  and  clear  outlines,  and  loved  to  delineate 
objects  through  a  haze. 

There  is  a  great  want  of  a  philosophical  essay  on  the 
choice,  the  benefits,  and  the  treatment  of  Hobby  Horses. 
It  would  form  a  connecting1  link  between  the  Libraries  of 
Useful  and  of  Entertaining  Knowledge.  Scarcely  a  man 
(the  made-up  and  artificial  man  alone  excepted)  who  could 
not  be  laid  under  contribution  for  such  a  work.  Our 
learned  and  amiable  recluse  might  have  a  whole  chapter  to 
himself.  When  it  was  not  a  field-day  with  him,  and  he 
had  no  exercises  in  divinity  to  perform,  he  would  descend 
from  the  great  horse,  and  amble  about  to  his  heart’s  con¬ 
tent  on  a  favourite  pad,  which,  however,  it  was  his  whim 
to  dress  in  the  housings  of  his  tall  charger,  and  to  train  to 
the  same  paces.  To  extract  the  marrow  of  Church  history 
was  his  appointed  duty — to  construct  schemes  of  physi¬ 
ology  his  habitual  pastime.  Uncle  Toby  never  threw  up 
his  intrenchments,  nor  “my  father”  his  theories  with 
greater  spirit.  He  worked  out,  at  least  on  paper,  a  com¬ 
plete  plan  of  education,  founded  on  a  diligent  survey  of  the 
functions  of  the  brain;  and  composed  an  elaborate  system, 
exhibiting  the  future  condition  of  man  when  disencumbered 
of  those  viscous  and  muscular  integuments,  which  in  the 
present  life  serve  as  a  kind  of  sheath  to  protect  the  sen¬ 
tient  mind  within,  from  the  intensities  of  delight  or  of  pain 
to  which,  without  such  a  shelter,  it  would  be  exposed. 
Too  wise  ever  to  become  frivolous  or  vapid,  his  wisdom 
was  not  of  that  exquisite  mould,  which  exhibits  itself  in 
unimpaired  lustre,  in  a  state#  of  gaiety  and  relaxation. 
Whatever  might  be  his  theme,  his  march  was  still  the  same, 
stately,  studied,  and  wearisome.  His  theological  and  his 
cerebral  inquiries  were  all  conducted  in  the  same  sonorous 
language.  Period  rolled  after  period  in  measured  cadence, 
page  answered  page  in  scientific  harmony.  This  paragraph 
challenged  applause  for  its  melodious  swell,  that  for  its  skil¬ 
ful  complexity,  the  next  for  the  protracted  simile  with 
which  it  brought  some  abstruse  discussion  to  a  picturesque 
and  graceful  close.  Any  of  them  would  have  furnished 
Dr.  Blair  with  illustrations  of  his  now-forgotten  rules  for 
writing  well;  and  exceedingly  fine  writing  it  was.  But, 


208 


STEPHEN'S  MISCELLANIES. 


after  all,  one’s  hobby  might  as  well  be  put  into  a  waltz  as 
into  the  grand  menage.  It  is  only  in  his  own  easy  natural 
shuffling  gait  that  the  animal  shows  to  advantage.  So  kind- 
hearted,  however,  and  so  full  of  matter  was  our  rider,  that 
the  most  fastidious  critic  could  hardly  think  twice  of  such 
a  trifle. 

The  lines  had  fallen  to  him  in  pleasant  places,  and  his 
gratitude  to  Providence  expressed  itself  in  depicting  his 
goodly  heritage  for  the  delight  and  the  emulation  of  others. 
Not,  indeed,  that  he  laid  bare  the  sacred  recesses  of  his 
home  to  the  vulgar  gaze,  by  publishing  journals,  confes¬ 
sions,  or  an  autobiography.  He  would  just  as  soon  have 
surrendered  his  body  to  the  surgeons  for  dissection  as  an 
anatomie  vivante.  But  reversing  the  familiar  method  of 
conveying  moral  precepts  under  the  veil  of  narrative,  he 
told  unconsciously  in  a  didactic  form,  a  story  as  beautiful 
as  it  was  true.  An  English  country  house  was  the  scene: 
the  dramatis  personas  parents,  enjoying  competency,  health, 
and  leisure,  very  learned  and  amiable  withal,  and  wise 
above  measure,  with  a  troop  of  boys  and  girls  as  intelligent 
and  docile  as  they  were  gay:  the  plot  or  fable  being  made 
up  of  the  late,  though  complete  development  of  their  various 
mental  powers. 

That  such  a  house  did  exist,  and  that  beneath  its  tran¬ 
quil  shelter  many  a  youth  and  many  a  maid  were  trained 
to  improve  and  to  adorn  the  land  which  gave  them  birth, 
no  reader  of  the  book  called  “Home  Education  ”  will  for 
a  moment  doubt;  or  at  least  none  who  has  ever  invented  a 
theory  or  revolved  an  apophthegm  while  watching  the  play 
or  listening  to  the  prattle  of  his  own  children.  But  that, 
north  or  south  of  Trent,  such  another  is  to  be  found  must 
be  disbelieved,  until  a  commission  of  married  men,  of  six 
years’  standing  at  the  least,  shall  have  ascertained  and  re¬ 
ported  the  fact.  What  with  managing  constituents  and 
turnpike  trusts,  writing  sermons  and  prescriptions,  meeting 
the  hounds  to-day  and  the  quarter  sessions  to-morrow,  an 
English  country  gentleman,  whether  clerical  or  laic,  who 
should  undertake  the  late  development  of  the  “Ideality,” 
and  the  “  Conceptive  Faculty,”  and  the  “Sense  of  Ana¬ 
logy,”  of  his  children,  though  he  should  address  himself  to 
“the  intuitive  faculties”  alone,  and  those  “gently  stimu¬ 
lated  by  pleasurable  emotions,”  would,  in  a  myriad  of  cases 
to  one,  end  in  something  very  different  from  the  promised 
result  of  “putting  their  minds  into  a  condition  of  intellectual 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


209 


opulence.”  Adam  was  earning  the  bread  of  his  sons  by 
the  sweat  of  his  brow,  while  they  were  learning  to  keep 
sheep,  and  to  till  the  ground,  and  such  has  ever  since  been 
the  condition  of  his  descendants.  Here  and  there  may 
perhaps  be  found  an  Eden  such  as  our  author  inhabited  and 
described,  where,  exempt  from  the  cares  of  earth,  and  cul¬ 
tivating  a  correspondence  between  the  human  and  the  Divine 
mind,  fathers  such  as  he  was  are  training  their  offspring  to 
apprehend  truth,  to  impart  truth,  and  to  discover  truth.  A 
lovely  scene  it  was,  and  drawn  with  all  the  earnest  pathos 
of  paternal  love.  But  as  the  Belvidere  Apollo  differs  from 
an  honest  sportsman  of  our  days,  or  the  Godfrey  of  Tasso 
from  an  officer  of  Her  Majesty’s  Life-Guards,  even  such 
was  the  difference  between  our  rural  philosopher  and  the 
ten  thousand  respectable  gentlemen  over  the  walls  of  whose 
country  mansions  fertile  vines  have  crept,  and  whose  tables 
are  thickly  set  with  olive  branches:  though  amongst  them 
may  be  found  many  double  first-class  men,  and  here  and 
there  a  senior  wrangler. 

Thus  flowed  on  a  life  which  kings  might  have  envied, 
sages  approved,  and  poets  sung,  if  in  these  later  days  those 
illustrious  personages  had  not  become  very  chary  of  such 
favours.  Things  looked  as  if  the  village  sculptor  and  versifier 
would  be  the  sole  guardians  of  his  posthumous  fame,  and  he 
known  to  posterity  only  as  one  of  those  best  of  fathers  and 
of  men,  over  whose  remains  the  yew  tree  in  the  neigh¬ 
bouring  church-yard  stood  sentinel.  Such  a  catastrophe 
would  have  suited  well  with  his  quiet  scorn  of  terrestrial 
glory,  but  ill  with  those  high- wrought  graces  of  style  in 
which  he  was  accustomed  to  express  it.  Religion  and 
philosophy  may  diminish  the  danger,  but  hardly  the  strength, 
of  the  universal  craving  for  the  esteem  of  our  fellow-mortals. 
He  knew  and  had  reflected  much:  and  it  was  his  duty  to 
impart  it.  He  had  discovered  many  current  errors,  and  it 
behooved  him  to  expose  them.  His  flow  of  language  was 
choice  and  copious,  and  philanthropy  itself  suggested  that 
he  should  awaken  all  its  melodies.  If  renown  would  fol¬ 
low,  if  a  frivolous  world  would  admire  her  monitor,  if  his 
labours  of  love  should  win  for  him  the  regard  of  the  dis¬ 
cerning  few,  or  even  the  applause  of  the  unthinking  many, 
why,  he  was  too  benevolent,  too  honest,  and  too  wise, 
either  to  despise  the  recompense,  or  to  affect  to  depreciate 
it;  and-  thus  he  became  an  author. 

18* 


210 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


To  “exhibit  at  one  view  the  several  principal  forms  of 
spurious  or  corrupted  religion,”  had  for  many  years  been 
his  chosen  task.  But  art  is  long,  and  life  short;  and  the 
stately  edifice  pictured  in  his  imagination,  was  abandoned 
for  a  range  of  structures  of  humbler  form,  though  better 
suited  to  the  taste  and  habits  of  his  age.  An  Essay  on 
Enthusiasm  prepared  the  way  for  another  on  Fanaticism,  to 
which  were  destined  to  succeed  treatises  on  Superstition,  on 
Credulity,  on  the  Corruption  of  Morals,  and  on  Skepticism. 
Of  this  series,  the  four  last  never  saw  the  light;  the  place 
assigned  in  the  programme  to  Superstition  having  been 
usurped  by  Spiritual  Despotism,  and  by  a  succession  of 
tracts  drawn  up  in  battle  array  against  those  of  the  Oxford 
Catholics,  under  the  title  of  “  Primitive  Christianity.”  Thus 
was  produced  an  incomplete  course  of  lectures  on  Ecclesi¬ 
astical  Nosology — a  science  which,  however  inviting,  could 
not  exercise  an  undisputed  influence  over  one  who  lived  in 
such  scenes,  and  who  was  blessed  with  such  associates  as 
we  have  mentioned. 

Nothing  more  easy  than  the  transition  from  the  spiritual 
diseases  of  the  world  to  the  mental  health  of  his  own  nur¬ 
sery — from  the  contemplation  of  souls  infected  by  the  taint 
of  their  mortal  prison-house,  to  a  meditation  on  immortal 
spirits,  whose  corporeal  shrines  shall  eternally  enhance 
their  purest  joys  and  participate  in  the  discharge  of  their 
most  exalted  duties.  As  when  a  Teutonic  commentator, 
a  man  egregious  and  most  celebrated,  long  harassed  with 
the  arrangement  of  some  intractable  chorus,  escaping  at 
length  from  its  anapaestic  or  ditrochaean  bondage  into  an  ex¬ 
cursus  on  the  dress  and  ornaments  of  the  Grecian  stage, 
revels  and  lingers  there,  rejoicing  in  his  freedom,  and  recruits 
his  strength  for  new  metrical  labours;  so  our  author,  (whose 
Homeric  style,  it  may  be  perceived,  is  contagious,)  averting 
his  thoughts  from  the  sad  legends  of  human  weakness, 
which  fill  so  large  a  space  in  the  history  of  the  Christian 
Church,  would  take  refuge  in  the  paradise  of  home,  or  in 
musings  on  that  eternal  rest  of  which  earth  has  no  other 
type  so  vivid  or  so  endearing.  On  his  “  Natural  History  of 
Enthusiasm,”  faithful  critics  (ourselves  among  the  number) 
pronounced  a  sentence,  which,  if  not  altogether  flattering 
to  the  self-esteem  of  the  historian,  may  yet  have  contributed 
to  that  improvement  in  the  art  of  authorship  which  is  to 
be  distinctly  traced  in  his  later  books. 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE, 


211 


Time  and  space  would  fail  us,  should  we  now  endeavour 
to  estimate  all  his  labours  in  that  branch  of  moral  or  reli¬ 
gious  science  which  he  undertook  to  cultivate.  But  the 
book  called  “Religious  Despotism,”  demands  at  least  a 
passing  notice.  Incomparably  the  most  vigorous  offspring 
of  his  brain,  it  has  had,  like  some  portionless  younger 
brother,  to  struggle  on  against  unmerited  neglect;  the  whole 
patrimony  of  praise  having  been  seized  upon  by  the  book 
on  Enthusiasm,  in  virtue  of  the  law  of  literary  primogeni¬ 
ture.  An  ill-chosen  title,  the  want  of  lucid  order,  and  a 
grandiloquence  here  more  than  ever  out  of  place,  may 
partly  account  for  this.  Be  the  world,  however,  assured, 
that  among  the  works  on  ecclesiastical  polity  which  it  has 
of  late  received  with  acclamation,  there  is  not  one  so  wor¬ 
thy  of  being  reverently  praised  and  inwardly  digested. 

The  divisions  “now  so  much  exasperated  that  exist 
amongst  us,  on  questions  belonging  to  the  exterior  forms 
and  the  profession  of  religion,  are  of  a  kind  that  affect  the 
Christian  with  inexpressible  grief,  the  patriot  with  shame 
and  dismay,  and  the  statesman  with  hopeless  perplexity.” 
So  says  our  author,  and  so  in  turn  say  all  the  disputants. 
But  he  alone,  as  far  as  our  reading  extends,  has  breathed 
this  complaint  in  the  true  spirit  of  Christian  kindness, 
united  to  a  catholic  breadth  of  capacity  and  of  knowledge. 

What  are  the  legitimate  foundations,  and  what  the  pro¬ 
per  limits  of  sacerdotal  authority? — questions  proposed  and 
answered  by  many  a  polemic,  religious  and  political ;  and 
sometimes,  though  very  rarely,  discussed  in  the  spirit  of  a 
philosophy  more  pure  and  elevated  than  is  usually  imbibed 
by  such  controversialists.  How  this  debate  was  managed 
by  a  man  of  robust  sense,  profound  learning,  and  still 
deeper  piety,  who,  though  too  upright  and  too  fastidious  to 
surrender  himself  to  the  extravagances  of  any  party,  had  a 
wide  personal  acquaintance  with  the  modes  of  thinking  and 
with  the  habits  of  all,  would  be  well  worth  the  knowing, 
even  if  that  knowledge  did  not  contribute  to  our  more  im¬ 
mediate  object  of  delineating  his  literary  character.  Am¬ 
ple,  however,  must  be  the  space  in  which  to  make  a  com¬ 
plete  exhibition,  or  even  an  exact  epitome  of  his  doctrines. 
It  will  be  enough  to  indicate  such  of  them  as  he  seems  to 
have  regarded  with  peculiar  attachment. 

Religion,  an  indestructible  element  of  our  nature,  may 
exist  as  a  system  of  superstitious  terrors;  in  which  case  the 


212 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


abject  humiliation  of  the  proselyte  will  give  the  measure 
of  the  authority  of  the  priest.  Or  it  may  exist  as  a  genu¬ 
ine  revelation  from  Heaven;  but  even  so,  the  fluctuating 
fashions  of  the  world  will  exalt  or  depress  the  powers  of 
the  ministers  of  the  purest  faith.  The  Greek  patriarch, 
after  the  manner  of  his  nation,  scaled  such  heights  of  au¬ 
thority  as  subtlety  and  eloquence  could  command  for  him. 
The  successors  of  Peter  triumphed  by  force  of  the  same 
audacious  energy  which  had  before  given  empire  to  the 
Caesars.  Boasting  of  her  liberties,  the  Gallican  Church 
was  content  to  lose  every  thing  hormis  Vhonneur . 

In  England,  ecclesiastical  despotism  had  to  encounter 
the  indexible  spirit  of  our  Barons  and  Burgesses;  while 
Demos,  the  arch-tyrant  of  the  United  States,  supreme  over 
all  rulers,  temporal  and  spiritual,  lays  alike  on  president 
and  priest  his  inexorable  command  to  progress — urging 
them  both  onward  in  the  same  impatient  career.  But,  be 
the  induence  of  national  character  on  sacerdotal  dominion 
what  it  may,  the  state  must  either  set  limits  to  the  power 
of  the  church  or  must  bow  to  her  supremacy.  Hands 
which  grasp  the  keys,  will,  if  unfettered,  soon  usurp  the 
sceptre  and  the  sword.  Religion  unites  men  in  societies, 
resting  on  a  basis  more  profound,  and  yet  agitated  by  ex¬ 
citements  more  intense  and  frequent,  than  any  other.  Be¬ 
tween  a  theocracy  administered  by  the  sacred  order,  and  a 
church  at  once  restrained  and  protected  bylaw,  there  is  no 
middle  resting-place.  “Alliance”  is  but  a  lofty  euphemism 
for  allegiance. 

Competency  and  independence  will  still  be  the  desire 
and  the  aim  of  the  human  heart,  whether  it  beats  under  the 
corslet,  the  ermine,  or  the  surplice.  To  refuse  to  ecclesi¬ 
astics  the  gratification  of  this  wish,  is  as  imprudent  as  it  is 
vain.  While  pointing  the  way  to  heaven,  they  are  still 
our  fellow-travellers  in  the  ways  of  earth.  Abandon  them 
to  the  spontaneous  support  of  their  disciples,  and  there  is 
an  end  of  the  mental  composure  necessary  for  their  arduous 
duties,  and  there  is  an  inlet  to  flatteries  and  to  frauds,  the 
most  repugnant  to  their  hallowed  character.  On  such  a 
system  imposts  are  laid  on  the  poor  and  the  feeble-minded, 
and  evaded  by  the  wealthy  and  the  supercilious.  For  the 
indigent  no  provision  is  made.  All  the  more  permanent 
and  catholic  schemes  of  Christian  philanthropy  are  un¬ 
heeded;  and  the  greatest  of  all  social  interests  is  intrusted 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


213 


to  mere  impulses  to  which  no  rational  lawgiver  would 
confide  the  least.  History  records  the  result  of  this  ex¬ 
periment,  as  tried  not  in  the  narrow  form  of  the  modern 
congregational  system,  but  on  the  broader  principle  of  thus 
creating  funds  to  support  the  pastors  of  a  province  or  a 
state.  Constantine  may  have  been  the  nursing  father,  but 
he  was  also  the  resolute  reformer  of  the  Church,  ller 
primitive  sanctity  was  impaired,  not  by  the  privileges  he 
conferred,  but  by  the  rapacious  habits  on  which  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  that  imperial  bounty  entitled  and  enabled  him  to 
impose  some  restraint.  Of  the  alliance  which  he  negoti¬ 
ated,  the  essential  condition  was,  that  the  Christian  hie¬ 
rarchy  should  be  defended  by  law  in  the  possession  of  the 
wealth  assigned  to  them,  and  should  be  prohibited  by  law 
from  augmenting  it  by  unworthy  means. 

Men  uniting  in  religious  fellowship  must  also  be  united 
by  some  scheme  of  internal  organization.  These  societies 
must  be  made  up  of  the  teachers  and  the  taught,  of  the 
governors  and  the  governed.  They  should  be  rather  fa¬ 
milies,  in  which  there  is  much  to  be  learned,  to  be  borne, 
and  to  be  done,  than  clubs  held  together  by  a  revocable 
will  for  the  enjoyment  in  common  of  equal  privileges. 

Absolute  monarchy  would  be  the  most  perfect  scheme 
of  civil,  and  absolute  prelacy  of  ecclesiastical  government, 
if  kings  and  prelates  were  absolutely  wise  and  just.  Sy¬ 
nods,  parliaments,  franchises,  constitutional  rights,  inesti¬ 
mable  as  securities  against  social  evils,  are  yet  but  proofs 
of  that  degeneracy  which,  in  certain  respects,  they  con¬ 
tribute  to  enhance.  They  impede  the  growth  and  the  ex¬ 
pansion  of  some  of  the  noblest  of  our  moral  sentiments; 
such  as  loyalty,  veneration,  humility,  and  mutual  confi¬ 
dence.  Now,  in  these  and  similar  feelings,  the  very  es¬ 
sence  of  religion  consists.  Whatever  ecclesiastical  regP 
men  most  conduces  to  their  development,  is  that  which  a 
Christian  society  would  spontaneously  assume.  Episcopal 
rule  is  the  “primitive  form”  in  which  pure  Christianity 
appears  among  men:  independency  that  which  it  acquires 
when  men  have  learned  to  distrust  each  other.  Patriarchal 
command  and  filial  duty  wait  on  that  perfect  love  which 
casteth  out  fear;  self-assertion  and  the  impatience  of  con¬ 
trol,  on  that  restless  fear  which  casts  out  love.  Govern¬ 
ment  and  the  graduated  subordination  of  ranks  would  have 
been  a  divine  ordinance,  even  if  it  had  not  been  expressly 


214 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

and  in  terms  promulgated  as  such.  It  may  be  read  in  the 
inspired  volume;  but  it  may  be  discerned  almost  as  clearly 
in  the  natural  distinctions  of  mankind.  God  himself  has 
consecrated  some  to  the  royal,  some  to  the  episcopal,  and 
some  to  the  priestly  office ;  and  whether  the  world  will 
hear  or  will  forbear,  that  high  commission  is  still  extant  in 
unimpaired  force,  and  may  never  be  disobeyed  with  impu¬ 
nity. 

As  in  the  domestic,  so  in  the  ecclesiastical  household, 
the  higher  functions  ought  to  be  undertaken  by  those  to 
whom  that  eminence  is  due,  on  the  ground  of  superior 
endowments,  whether  natural  or  acquired.  How  to  adjust 
the  claims  of  rival  candidates,  is  the  great  practical  difficulty. 
Who  shall  decide  which  members  of  the  Church  shall  be 
raised  to  the  clerical  office,  and  which  shall  constitute  the 
laity.  Apostolical  example,  in  this  ease,  affords  no  rule 
for  the  guidance  of  later  ages.  When  as  yet  congregations 
were  to  be  formed,  the  choice  of  teachers  inevitably  be¬ 
longed  to  the  first  promulgators  of  the  faith.  Neither  will 
the  sacred  text  yield  an  explicit  answer  to  this  inquiry. 
Nothing  more  studiously  indefinite  than  the  language  of 
Paul,  of  Peter,  and  of  John,  regarding  the  external  insti¬ 
tutes,  of  Christianity.  Such  outward  forms  they  decidedly 
left  in  an  inchoate  and  plastic  state,  to  be  moulded  to  the 
varying  exigencies  of  mankind  in  different  political  socie¬ 
ties. 

From  their  writings,  and  from  the  practice  of  their  im¬ 
mediate  successors,  may,  however,  be  deduced  one  general 
principle.  It  is,  that  in  the  government  of  the  Church  the 
monarchical  and  the  popular  elements  should  be  combined 
and  harmonized.  Yet  to  divorce  them  from  each  other  is  the 
common  aim,  though  by  opposite  methods,  both  of  those 
whose  boast  is  their  apostolical  succession,  and  of  those 
who  exult  in  the  freedom  of  religious  democracy.  Here 
both  parties  are  untrue  to  their  own  cardinal  maxims.  The 
antiquarian  divines  explore  their  records  in  vain  for  a  pre¬ 
text  for  excluding  the  laity  from  a  voice  in  deliberation,  in 
discipline,  and  in  the  election  of  their  bishops,  priests,  and 
deacons.  On  this  subject  they  therefore  decline,  and  shrink 
from  their  favourite  and  customary  appeal  to  tradition.  The 
pure  biblicists  search  the  inspired  canon  with  equally  ill  suc¬ 
cess,  for  one  word  to  show  that  the  pastor  should  be  the 
mere  stipendiary  and  dependant  of  his  dock,  subsisting  on 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


215 


their  bounty,  subject  to  their  will,  and  xemoveable  at  their 
pleasure.  They  therefore  refuse  in  this  discussion  to  admit 
“  the  Bible,  and  the  Bible  alone”  as  their  complete  and  all- 
sufficient  guide  of  conduct.  Sacerdotal  power  and  popular 
control,  which,  by  a  well  adjusted  equipoise,  should  mu¬ 
tually  sustain  the  spiritual  edifice,  are  thus,  by  their  ill- 
judging  partisans,  arrayed  as  antagonist,  or  rather  as  hostile 
forces.  In  one  direction  the  march  of  despotism,  in  ano¬ 
ther  the  progress  of  anarchy,  is  advanced  by  those  to  whom 
both  should  be  equally  abhorrent,  as  being  equally  opposed 
to  their  common  faith. 

How  copious  the  eloquence  with  which  the  author  of 
“  Spiritual  Despotism  ”  would  have  disclaimed  all  respon¬ 
sibility  for  the  opinions  thus  ascribed  to  him,  and  Tor  the 
language  in  which  they  have  been  expressed!  With  what 
exuberant  artifices  of  style  would  he  have  insisted  that  the 
mature  results  of  the  patient  studies  of  his  life,  are  not  to 
be  understood  by  any  less  laborious  method  than  that  of 
reading  and  meditating  the  volume  in  which  he  has  himself 
recorded  them!  No  protest  could  be  more  reasonable.  Of 
such  a  book  a  fair  estimate  cannot  be  formed  from  the  hasty 
sketch  of  an  inconsiderable  fragment,  selected  not  as  being 
more  impressive  than  the  rest,  but  it  may  be  as  indicating 
doctrines  for  which,  as  very  nearly  coinciding  with  his  own, 
the  abbreviator  might  desire  to  win  at  least  a  transient  notice. 
Gratitude  to  him  who  has  brought  to  the  birth  thoughts 
with  which  the  mind  has  been  long,  though  silently  teem¬ 
ing,  may  overflow  in  unmeasured  praise.  Little,  however, 
is  hazarded  in  announcing  this  work  as  the  most  original, 
comprehensive,  and  profound  contribution  which  any  living 
writer  in  our  own  country  has  made  to  the  science  of  ec¬ 
clesiastical  polity.  They  whose  delight  is  in  the  transcen¬ 
dental  and  the  obscure,  who  pine  for  theories  which  elude 
their  grasp,  and  believe  that  to  strain  is  to  expand  the  mind, 
will  judge  otherwise.  For  once  our  author  must  submit  to 
the  reproach,  perhaps  the  unwelcome  reproach,  of  being 
perfectly  intelligible.  Drawing  outlines  of  history  with  a 
hand  as  bold  and  free  as  that  of  Guizot,  conversant  with 
principles  as  recondite  as  those  of  Coleridge,  and  animated 
by  the  same  chaste  and  fervent  piety  which  hallows  the 
speculations  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  his  was  the  further  praise 
of  bringing  to  the  encounter,  with  the  loftiest  abstractions, 
that  athletic  good  sense  which  disdains  to  enlarge  itself  by 


216 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


looming  through  a  fog.  Master,  as  he  was  of  the  chiar ’ 
oscuro ,  the  love  of  truth  was  too  strong  in  him  for  the  love 
of  art.  Addressing  mankind  on  a  subject  of  urgent  and 
solemn  interest,  he  rose  so  far  above  the  fashions  of  his  age, 
as  to  shun  the  region  over  which  sublimity  and  nonsense 
hold  divided  rule;  remembering,  perhaps,  that  it  has  never 
been  frequented  by  any  of  the  master  spirits  of  the  world; 
and  that,  even  amongst  men  divinely  inspired,  he  who  was 
at  once  the  greatest  and  the  most  deeply  learned,  had  pre¬ 
ferred  to  speak  five  words  to  edification  than  to  speak  ten 
thousand  words  in  an  unknown  tongue.  To  grapple  with 
principles  of  the  widest  span,  without  requiring  so  much 
as  a  momentary  repose  in  the  lap  of  mysticism,  is  an  ad¬ 
mirable  power.  To  refuse  on  such  an  occasion  the  but  too 
familiar  and  ready  aid  of  that  narcotic,  is  a  real,  though  an 
unobtrusive  virtue. 

As  the  unwonted  self-denial  of  thin  potations  will  some¬ 
times  appear  to  him  who  has  made  it  to  deserve  the  reward 
of  a  generous  cup  of  sack,  so  he  who  had  thus  submitted 
himself  to  the  penance  of  tracing,  in  distinct  and  legible 
characters,  the  progress  of  spiritual  despotism,  his  task  ac¬ 
complished,  soared  away  into  other  contemplations  more 
agreeable  to  himself  at  least,  because  more  abstruse,  which 
he  revealed  to  the  lower  world  under  the  enigmatical  title 
of  “  Saturday  Evening.”  He  sought  relief  and  found  it, 
when  ordinary  mortals  find  little  else  than  lassitude;  for,  in 
the  full  sense  of  that  profound  expression,  he  was  a  man 
spiritually  minded.  His  assent  to  Christianity  was  no  faint 
admission  that  the  balance  of  conflicting  arguments  inclined 
in  favour  of  that  belief.  It  was  a  conviction  rooted  in  the 
inmost  recesses  of  his  mind;  the  germinating  principle  of 
the  devout  thoughts  which  grew  spontaneously  in  that  well 
cultured  and  fertile  soil.  To  measure  the  heights  and  the 
depths  of  the  truths  revealed  or  intimated  in  the  inspired 
volume,  was  at  once  the  solace  and  the  habitual  labour  of 
his  life. 

From  the  strife  of  politicians,  the  wonders  of  art,  and  the 
controversies  of  the  learned,  he  turned  away  to  ponder  on 
the  hopes  and  prospects  of  the  Christian  Church,  on  her 
lapse  from  original  purity,  on  the  fellowship  and  isolation 
of  her  members,  the  limits  of  revealed  knowledge,  the  dis¬ 
solution  and  the  perpetuity  of  our  nature,  and  the  modes  of 
our  future  existence.  Incapable  of  acquiescing  tamely  in 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


217 


any  of  the  dogmatic  systems  of  divinity,  (all  alike  definite, 
cold,  sterile,  and  earth-born,)  he  aspired  to  reach  that  up¬ 
per  region  which  the  pure  light  visits,  and  whence  alone 
it  is  reflected  in  all  its  purity.  There  he  proposed  to  him¬ 
self  and  handled  problems  0/  which  Butler  might  have  sur¬ 
mised  the  solution,  and  Milton  evolved  the  latent  glories.  But 
lie  was  attempting  to  scale  eminences  where  the  mightiest 
become  conscious  of  their  weakness,  and  the  boldest  ima¬ 
gination  is  taught  the  penury  of  her  resources.  To  throw 
some  unsteady  and  precarious  lights  on  such  themes,  should 
limit  the  ambition,  as  it  will  unavoidably  terminate  the  suc¬ 
cess,  of  all  intellects  but  those  of  the  most  exalted  order. 
Yet  how  abstain  altogether  from  such  endeavours  to  ex¬ 
plore  things  undreamt  of  in  our  popular  theology,  when 
the  ear  has  been  trained  to  hear,  however  indistinctly,  the 
undertones  of  the  Divine  voice,  and  the  heart  to  understand, 
however  imperfectly,  the  inarticulate  language  of  the  Divine 
government?  Blessed  in  no  vulgar  degree  with  such  per¬ 
ceptions,  our  author  applied  himself  with  reverence,  and 
with  freedom  of  thought,  to  topics  which,  when  so  examined, 
can  never  be  unfruitful,  though  the  fruits  may  often  be  un¬ 
ripe,  and  to  the  great  majority  unpalatable.  Take,  as  an 
example,  the  following  abridgment  of  a  chapter,  entitled, 
“  The  State  of  Seclusion:” — 

From  our  narrow  survey  of  the  affairs  of  mankind,  no 
principle  of  universal  morals  can  be  deduced,  except  as 
a  matter  of  doubtful  speculation  and  still  recurring  con¬ 
troversy,  triumphant  to-day,  to  be  discarded  to-morrow. 
Were  it  otherwise,  the  slumber  of  the  soul,  with  all  its 
attendant  dreams  and  fantasies,  must  be  broken.  Our  pro¬ 
bationary  state  requires  that  we  should  exist  only  as  the 
inhabitants  of  a  narrow  area,  shut  out  from  the  general 
assembly  of  intelligent  beings,  and  denied  all  access  to 
those  vehement  and  irresistible  persuasions  by  which,  with 
their  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the  universal  laws  of 
the  divine  economy,  they  would  constrain  us  to  obedience. 
Within  the  walls  of  our  prison-house  we  are  condemned 
to  grope  in  vain,  if  so  we  may  discover  the  permanent  ten¬ 
dencies  and  the  ultimate  issues  of  things.  The  great  axioms 
of  eternal  virtue  are  rather  obscured  than  illustrated  by  the 
complexity,  the  insignificance,  and  the  obtrusive  glare  of 
those  occurrences  which  make  up  national  and  individual 
history.  Each  man  is  straightened  in  his  sphere  of  obser- 
19 


218 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


vation  and  of  thought.  His  experience  is  incalculably 
small  when  compared  to  that  of  the  whole  human  family, 
of  which  he  is  for  the  time  a  member.  Of  the  events  of 
preceding  ages,  he  may  catch  some  faint  notices;  of  those 
of  the  ages  to  come,  he  lives  and  dies  in  profound  ignorance. 
Between  those  who  are  entering  and  those  who  are  about 
to  quit  this  stage  of  existence,  there  are  such  distinctions 
of  physical  temperament  as  greatly  intercept  the  tradition 
of  knowledge  from  parents  to  their  children.  Geographical 
position,  the  antipathy  of  races,  discordance  of  tastes,  and 
differences  of  speech,  contribute  still  further  to  segregate 
communities  and  their  component  parts.  The  intervention 
of  a  river,  or  a  chain  of  mountains,  will  reduce  to  mute 
signs  and  gestures  the  language  by  which  man  holds  inter¬ 
course  with  his  fellows.  Narrowing  his  pursuits  and 
thoughts  within  a  single  path,  the  petty  cares  of  life  ren¬ 
der  him  ignorant  of  what  is  passing  beyond  his  daily  walk, 
and  unobservant  of  the  far  larger  proportion  of  what  occurs 
within  it.  So  apparently  inextricable  is  the  confusion,  and 
so  many  the  seeming  anomalies  of  all  that  falls  under  his 
personal  notice,  that  man’s  existence  assumes  the  semblance 
rather  of  a  game  of  chance  than  of  a  system  throughout 
which  is  to  be  traced  the  average  result  of  established  rules. 
So  feeble  is  the  faculty  of  generalization  in  most' — so  minute, 
urgent,  and  uniform,  and  yet  so  numerous  the  affairs  in 
which  they  are  engaged;  such  are  the  contaminations,  and 
such  the  ridicule  of  life;  so  extravagant  the  folly  in  one 
direction,  and  so  abject  the  misery  in  another,  that  the 
prospect  open  to  any  one  of  us,  during  his  confinement  in 
this  sublunary  state,  is  every  where  hedged  round  within 
narrow  precincts,  and  bounded  by  a  horizon  as  indistinct 
as  it  is  near. 

Yet  from  our  prison-house  we  look  out  on  populous  re¬ 
gions  of  illimitable  space,  though  forbidden  to  converse 
with  their  inhabitants.  We  perceive  that,  beyond  the  limits 
of  our  own  planet,  the  same  law  of  seclusion  prevails. 
Creation  does  not  form  one  continuous  surface  over  which 
beings  of  the  same  order  might  pursue  an  unbroken  path, 
but  is  made  up  of  globes  suspended  in  thin  space  at  in¬ 
calculable  distances.  While  neighbouring  worlds  are  thus 
estranged  from  each  other,  the  vastness  of  the  universe  is 
exhibited  to  every  percipient  being  within  its  range.  Thus 
the  isolation  of  man  is  but  the  development  on  earth  of 


PHYSICAL  THEORY-  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


219 


one  great  law  by  which  all  nature  is  pervaded.  Created  in¬ 
telligences  are  every  where  kept  apart  from  that  communion 
with  other  ranks  of  being,  whose  greater  comprehensiveness 
of  knowledge  would  destroy  the  balance  of  conflicting  mo¬ 
tives,  and  reduce  the  rational  will  to  a  state  of  unresisting  sub¬ 
jection.  Man  is  isolated  from  preceding  generations,  and  from 
all  but  a  very  inconsiderable  number  of  his  own,  because  the 
comprehensive  experience  which  he  might  otherwise  gain 
of  the  course  of  human  affairs,  would  in  the  same  manner 
be  destructive  of  his  liberty  of  choice.  Each  is  left  to 
gather  from  his  separate  experience  moral  rules  at  once 
unobtrusive,  and  yet  capable  of  sufficient  proof.  Wisdom 
does  not  raise  her  voice  in  the  streets;  she  calmly  offers 
instruction  to  the  prudent,  but  does  not  force  it  on  the 
thoughtless.  The  division  of  created  minds  into  distinct 
communities,  and  the  various  methods  by  which  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  same  community  are  separated  from  each 
other,  are  parts  of  that  general  ordinance  or  system  by 
which  a  certain  reserve  is  imposed  on  wisdom  and  on  vir¬ 
tue.  Things  eternal  and  universal  are  unseen;  things  par¬ 
tial  and  temporal  are  alone  submitted  to  our  observation. 

Such,  divested  of  the  embellishments  with  which  they 
fell  from  his  own  hand,  are  the  meditations  to  which  the 
historian  of  Enthusiasm  has  devoted  one  of  his  “Saturday 
Evenings.”  It  is  a  loss  they  can  ill  afford.  Winnowed  a 
little  further,  this  splendid  essay  (for  such  in  the  original 
it  really  is)  might,  without  the  escape  of  any  of  its  essences, 
be  exhibited  in  the  form  of  one  or  two  simple  and  familiar 
truths: — as  thus: — 

Moral  probation  is  incompatible  with  a  distinct  and  cer¬ 
tain  foresight  of  all  the  remote  tendencies,  and  of  all  the 
ultimate  results  of  our  conduct.  If  the  transient  delights 
which  allure  us,  and  the  overwhelming  evils  which  follow 
in  their  train,  were  both  at  once  revealed  to  the  mental  vi¬ 
sion  in  the  vivid  colours  and  hard  outlines  of  the  naked 
reality,  neither  vice  nor  virtue  could  any  longer  exist  among 
men.  As  probationers,  we  must  live  in  the  state  of  seclu¬ 
sion,  that  is,  we  must  be  cut  off  from  those  sources  of 
information,  which,  if  we  had  access  to  them,  would  pre¬ 
vent  even  a  momentary  equipoise  between  the  present  and 
the  future — between  those  desires  which  crave  immediate 
indulgence,  and  those  which  point  to  a  distant  but  greater 


220 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


good.  One  of  the  causes  by  which  the  influx  of  such 
knowledge  is  impeded,  is  the  insular  position  of  our  globe 
in  the  shoreless  ocean  of  space;  and  as  this  physical  isola¬ 
tion  of  worlds  seems  to  pervade  the  celestial  system,  we 
may  conjecture  that  “  seclusion  is  a  law  of  the  universe,” 
and  that  throughout  the  stellar  regions  imperfect  know¬ 
ledge  is  made  conducive  to  the  exercise  and  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  virtue.  There  is  but  one  Being  to  whom  we  are 
taught  to  ascribe  complete  and  inflexible  rectitude,  because 
there  is  but  one  to  whom  we  can  attribute  absolute  om¬ 
niscience. 

Inconsiderable  as  is  the  amount  of  genuine  ore  employed 
in  this  essay,  and  in  many  other  parts  of  the  collection  of 
which  it  forms  no  unfavourable  specimen,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  refer  to  a  more  apt  illustration  of  the  ductility 
and  the  brilliance  of  which  moral  truth  is  susceptible. 
What  if  Selden  or  Pascal  would  have  extracted  into  a 
page  or  two  of  apophthegms  the  essential  oils  of  all  these 
discourses;  and  what  though  the  capacity  to  concentrate 
thought  be  a  nobler  gift  than  the  art  to  diffuse  it;  yet  may 
this  inferior  power  exist  in  a  state  of  rare  and  admirable 
excellence.  Genuine  wisdom  has  many  tongues  and  many 
aspects,  and  employs  each  in  turn  to  express  and  to  promote 
that  love  of  mankind  which,  under  all  her  external  forms, 
is  still  her  animating  spirit.  Yet  it  must  be  confessed, 
that  she  so  habitually  delights  in  the  simplest  garb,  that 
when,  as  in  these  sabbatical  essays,  she  decks  herself  out 
in  the  literary  fashions  of  the  day,  one  may  hope  to  be  for¬ 
given  for  being  unaware  of  her  presence.  They  are  infinitely 
more  rich  in  knowledge  and  in  power  than  the  generation 
of  the  author  would  confess;  and  yet  was  not  that  genera¬ 
tion  to  blame?  Under  draperies  adjusted  with  such  ob¬ 
trusive  skill,  and  of  so  elaborate  a  texture,  men  are  seldom 
accustomed  to  find  real  beauty,  and  are  therefore  but  little 
disposed  to  search  for  it. 

When  a  biographer  has  conducted  his  hero  to  the  tomb, 
he  usually  leaves  him  there.  To  the  list  of  excepted  cases 
must  be  added  that  of  the  author  of  “  A  Physical  Theory 
of  a  Future  Life.”  In  form  a  speculative  treatise,  it  may 
be  considered  as  substantially  a  narrative  of  his  existence 
beyond  the  confines  of  earth,  in  those  scenes  which  most 
men  occasionally  anticipate,  and  which  many  have  attempted 
to  describe;  some  from  the  ambition  for  immortal  fame, 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


221 


and  some  impelled  by  the  cravings  for  immortal  felicity. 
From  the  shelves  of  his  well-filled  library,  sages  and  poets 
were  summoned  to  contribute  to  the  formation  of  this 
work.  First,  and  before  all,  were  consulted  the  writers 
of  the  sacred  volume;  of  whom  it  may  with  the  strictest 
truth  be  said,  that  they  have  established  the  triumph  of 
good  sense  over  the  mere  dreams  of  excited  fancy.  Of 
such  dreams,  none  possessed  a  firmer  hold  on  the  Italian 
and  Greek  philosophers  and  their  disciples,  than  that  after 
death  man  was  to  pass  into  a  state  of  pure  incorporeity, 
and  to  be  absorbed  by  the  great  Mundane  Soul.  Very 
different  the  teaching  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament, 
They  transferred  from  this  world  to  the  next  the  great 
truth — that  human  happiness  requires  not  only  that  the 
mind  be  sound,  but  that  it  be  lodged  in  a  sound  body. 
Irenaeus  and  Tertullian  informed  our  theorist  that  such  was 
also  the  creed  of  the  immediate  successors  of  the  Apostles, 
Origen  taught  him,  that  to  exist  as  a  spirit  wholly  detached 
and  separate  from  matter,  is  the  incommunicable  attribute 
of  the  omnipresent  Deity;  and  instructed  him  to  understand 
the  luciform  body  of  the  Platonic  system  as  identical  with 
the  spiritual  body  of  the  Christian  revelation. 

From  the  same  great  master  he  learned  that,  without 
such  an  instrumentality,  minds  created  and  subordinate 
must  be  cut  off  from  all  commerce  with  external  things, 
and  become  nothing  more  than  so  many  inert,  insulated, 
and  contemplative  entities.  With  these  great  fathers  of 
the  Church  he  found  the  rest  of  that  venerable  college  in 
harmony — -copious  in  their  inquiries  respecting  the  nature 
of  good  and  bad  demons — assigning  to  the  angelic  host  the 
nearest  possible  resemblance,  and  to  the  evil  spirits  the 
utmost  possible  dissimilarity,  to  the  defecated  intelligences 
of  the  Aristotelic  learning;  the  one  impassive  to  all  sensual 
delights,  the  other  inhaling  with  an  unholy  relish  the 
savoury  fumes  of  heathen  sacrifices,  but  both  clad  with 
material  integuments,  subtilized  to  an  imponderable  and 
indefinite  tenuity.  Their  volumes,  especially,  if  we  re¬ 
member  rightly,  those  of  Augustine,  revealed  to  him  the 
farther  secret  of  the  manner  in  which  spirits  inhabiting 
these  ethereal  vehicles  hold  intercourse  with  each  other; 
and  even  explained  the  shapes  in  which  they  manifest  their 
presence  to  those  exquisite  organs  of  sensation  by  which 
alone  they  are  perceptible.  Cook,  or  La  Perouse,  never 

19* 


222 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


drew  a  plainer  chart  of  their  discoveries,  than  that  which 
was  thus  laid  open  to  our  author  of  the  regions  of  the 
blessed.  Cuvier  never  examined  the  osseous  structure  of 
an  antediluvian  quadruped  more  closely,  than  the  mental 
and  physical  constitution  of  the  immortals  was  thus  ana¬ 
lyzed  by  some  of  those  who  in  ancient  times  aspired  one 
day  to  join  that  exalted  company. 

Other  provinces  of  our  author’s  literary  dominions  were 
yet  to  be  explored.  One  contemptuous  glance  was  given 
to  the  Koran,  and  to  the  paradise  copied,  as  it  might  seem, 
by  the  Prophet,  from  the  Aphroditan  temples  of  Paphos 
or  Idalia.  Homer  exhibited  to  him  the  illustrious  dead  as 
so  many  victims  of  the  inexorable  Fates  against  which 
they  had  contended  so  bravely  on  earth,  and  as  agitated  by 
passions  which  it  was  no  longer  permitted  them  to  gratify. 
His  great  imitator  discovered  to  the  student,  Elysian  fields 
over  which  satiety  reigned  in  eternal  and  undisputed  sway, 
and  which  the  poet  himself  advantageously  exchanged, 
twelve  centuries  afterwards,  for  the  outskirts  of  the  “In¬ 
ferno,”  with  an  occasional  voyage  of  discovery  through 
those  gloomy  mansions.  The  awful  magician  who  placed 
him  there  lost  much  of  his  own  inspiration,  when,  quitting 
the  guidance  of  Virgil  for  that  of  Beatrice,  he  traversed  in 
her  company  the  seven  heavens,  and  listened  in  the  sun 
to  the  lectures  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  or  received  from  the 
saints  congregated  in  the  form  of  an  eagle  in  the  planet 
Jupiter,  a  metaphysical  comment  on  the  mysteries  of  the 
divine  decrees. 

From  the  poets,  our  author  next  turned  to  the  theologi¬ 
cal  philosophers  of  his  own  and  other  countries.  In  Cud- 
worth  and  Brucker  he  found  the  doctrines  of  the  schools 
of  ancient  and  of  modern  Europe  in  more  perfect  sym¬ 
metry,  and  in  greater  clearness  than  in  the  works  of  the 
sages  and  schoolmen  themselves;  but  cold  as  the  latitudi- 
narianism  of  the  first,  and  dry  as  the  antiquarian  lore  of 
the  second.  At  length  his  hand  rested  on  two  volumes  in 
which  the  post-sepulchral  condition  of  man  is  delineated 
with  a  beauty  and  eloquence  to  which  he  rendered  a  willing, 
although  a  silent  homage.  One  ofc  those  was  the  treatise 
of  Thomas  Burnett — Be  Statu  Mortuorum  et  Resurgen- 
tium — the  other,  that  book  on  the  “  Light  of  Nature,”  in 
which  Abraham  Tucker  traverses  the  world  to  come  in 
his  atomic  or  vehicular  state.  Burnett,  it  may  be  supposed, 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


223 


best  knew  his  own  strength  and  weakness,  and  judged 
rightly  in  choosing  scientific  or  critical  subjects,  and  in 
discussing  them  in  a  dead  language.  But  to  those  who 
read  his  works  it  must  ever  remain  a  mystery  that  he  could 
subject  himself  to  such  fetters,  instead  of  yielding  to  the  in¬ 
spiration  which  was  ever  at  hand  to  sublimate  into  impas¬ 
sioned  poetry  whatever  exact  knowledge  or  whatever  learned 
inquiries  might  happen  to  engage  his  thoughts.  Tucker, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  a  matter  of  fact  person;  happy  be¬ 
yond  all  men  in  the  power  of  illustrating  the  obscure  by 
the  familiar;  but  happier  still  in  the  most  benevolent  and 
cheerful  temper,  and  in  a  style  which  beautifully  reflects  the 
constitutional  gaiety  and  kindness  of  his  heart.  There  is  a 
charm  even  in  his  want  of  method,  and  in  the  very  clumsi¬ 
ness  of  his  paragraphs;  for  each  sentence  bears  him  testi¬ 
mony  that  he  is  too  intent  on  his  object  to  think  of  any 
thing  else,  and  that  to  teach  controversialists  to  understand 
and  to  love  each  other  was  the  single  end  for  which  he  lived 
and  wrote.  Of  his  metaphysical  speculations,  the  most 
original  and  curious  is  the  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  the 
Operation  of  Motives.  But  his  excellence  consists  in  the 
brightness  and  in  the  variety  of  the  lights  he  has  thrown 
round  the  whole  circle  of  those  topics  over  which  natural 
and  revealed  religion  exercise  a  common  and  indivisible 
dominion.  To  rid  them  of  mere  logomachies,  to  show 
how  much  the  fiercest  disputants  may  be  unconsciously 
agreed,  to  prove  how  greatly  Christianity  is  misrepresented 
by  many  of  her  opponents,  and  misunderstood  by  many  of 
her  friends — and,  without  ever  assuming  the  preacher’s 
office,  to  explain  the  depths  of  the  great  Christian  canon 
of  mutual  love  as  the  universal  substratum  of  all  moral  truth, 
— — this  is  the  duty  which  he  has  undertaken,  and  which  he 
executes,  often  successfully,  and  always  with  such  courage, 
diligence,  and  vivacity,  and  with  so  unbroken  a  sunshine 
of  a  placid  and  playful  temper,  as  to  render  the  “Light  of 
Nature”  one  of  the  most  attractive  books  in  our  language, 
both  to  those  who  read  to  be  themselves  instructed  on  these 
questions,  and  to  those  who  read  with  the  view  of  impart¬ 
ing  such  instruction  to  others. 

So  judged  Paley  in  the  last  generation;  and  such  is  mani¬ 
festly  the  opinion  of  Archbishop  Whateley,  and  of  Bishop 
Coppleston,  with  many  other  writers  of  our  own.  Amongst 
the  many  who  have  drawn  at  this  fountain,  the  latest  would 


224 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


appear  to  be  the  author  of  “  The  Physical  Theory  of  a 
Future  Life.”  Whether  he  in  fact  availed  himself  of  the 
sources  of  information  which  we  have  indicated,  or  any 
other  of  the  countless  books  which  treat  on  the  mysteries 
of  the  world  to  which  we  are  all  passing1,  is,  however  a 
fact  on  which  it  is  impossible  to  advance  beyond  conjecture. 
The  old  and  obsolete  fashion  of  commencing  a  voyage  of 
discovery  to  any  terra  incognita ,  by  a  retrospect  of  the 
success  or  failure  of  former  adventurers,  and  the  still  more 
ancient  practice  of  fencing  round  the  page  with  references 
and  quotations,  were  not  without  their  use.  It  would, 
however,  be  captious  to  complain  of  the  discontinuance, 
in  a  single  case,  of  customs  so  generally  laid  aside ;  or  to 
arraign  an  author  as  making  an  unjust  pretension  to  the 
praise  of  originality,  merely  because  he  does  not  in  terms 
disavow  it.  If  in  this  new  theory  there  is  little  to  be  found  in 
substance  with  which  those  who  are  inquisitive  about  such 
matters  were  not  already  familiar,  there  is  at  least  a  systema- 
tic  completeness  and  symmetry,  in  this  scheme  of  a  future 
life,  unrivalled  even  in  Abraham  Tucker’s  vision.  In  order 
to  disclose  to  mankind  the  prospect  which  thus  awaits 
them,  it  will  be  necessary  to  convert  our  author’s  didactics 
into  the  form  of  a  fragment  of  his  posthumous  autobiography 
— a  freedom,  for  the  pardon  of  which  the  necessity  of  the 
case  may  be  urged;  since  it  seems  impossible  by  any  other 
method  to  convey  any  adequate  conception  of  a  career  which, 
dazzling  as  it  is  in  itself,  is  still  further  obscured  by  the  bril- 
liant  polish  of  the  abstract  phraseology  in  which  it  is 
described  by  him  by  whom,  in  imagination  at  least,  it  was 
run.  He  may,  then,  be  supposed  to  have  revealed  the  in¬ 
cidents  of  his  immortal  existence  to  the  associates  of  his 
mortal  being,  in  some  such  terms  as  the  following: — 

One  universal  bewilderment  of  thought,  one  passing 
agony,  and  all  was  still.  I  had  emerged  from  the  confines 
of  life,  and  yet  I  lived.  Time,  place,  and  sensation  were 
extinct.  Memory  had  lost  her  office,  and  the  activity  of  my 
reasoning  powers  was  suspended.  Apart  from  every  other 
being,  and  entombed  in  the  solitude  of  my  own  nature,  all 
my  sentient  and  mental  faculties  were  absorbed  and  con¬ 
centrated  in  one  intense  perception  of  self-consciousness. 
Before  me  lay  expanded,  as  in  a  vast  panorama,  the  entire 
course  of  my  mortal  life.  I  was  at  once  the  actor  and  the 
spectator  of  the  whole  eventful  scene;  every  thought  as 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


225 


distinct,  every  word  as  articulate,  and  every  incident  as 
fresh  as  at  the  moment  of  their  birth.  The  enigmas  of  my 
existence  were  solved.  That  material  and  intellectual  me¬ 
chanism  of  which,  for  threescore  years  and  ten,  I  had  been 
the  subject,  was  laid  bare,  with  all  the  mutual  dependencies 
of  the  countless  events,  great  and  trivial,  of  my  sublunary 
days.  Grasping  at  length  the  threads  of  that  vast  labyrinth, 
I  perceived  that  they  had  all  been  woven  by  the  same  Di¬ 
vine  Artificer.  At  each  step  of  the  way  by  which  I  had 
come,  I  now  traced  the  intervention  of  an  ever  watchful 
Providence.  Complicated  and  perplexing  as  the  condition 
of  human  life  had  formerly  appeared  to  me,  I  at  length  dis¬ 
covered  the  great  ultimate  object  to  which  each  movement 
of  that  intricate  apparatus  had  been  designed  to  minister. 
I  saw  that  the  whole  had  been  one  harmonious  and  com¬ 
prehensive  scheme  for  purifying  the  affections  of  my  nature, 
and  invigorating  them  for  nobler  and  more  arduous  exer¬ 
cises.  I  had  gone  down  to  Hades,  and  Deity  was  there. 
On  earth  his  existence  had  been  demonstrated.  Here  it 
was  felt  by  a  consciousness  intuitive  and  irresistible.  A 
prisoner  in  the  flesh,  I  had  been  wont  to  adore  the  majesty 
of  the  Creator.  A  disembodied  spirit,  I  was  awake  to  the 
conviction  that  he  exists  as  the  perennial  source  of  happi¬ 
ness,  which,  concentrated  in  his  own  nature,  is  thence  dif¬ 
fused  throughout  the  universe,  although  in  degrees  immea¬ 
surably  distant  from  each  other,  and  according  to  laws 
unsearchable  by  any  finite  understanding.  Thus  imbibing 
knowledge  of  myself  and  of  Deity,  and  alive  only  to  the 
emotions  inspired  by  this  ever-present  spectacle,  I  became 
the  passive  recipient  of  influences  instinct  with  a  delight  so 
tranquil,  and  with  a  peace  so  unbroken,  that  weariness, 
satiety,  and  the  desire  for  change  appeared  to  have  departed 
from  me  for  ever. 

Change,  however,  awaited  me.  So  slight  and  imperfect 
had  been  the  alliance  between  my  disembodied  spirit  and 
the  world  of  matter,  that,  destitute  of  all  sensation,  I  had 
lost  all  measure  of  time,  and  knew  not  whether  ages  had 
revolved,  or  but  a  moment  had  passed  away  during  my  iso¬ 
lated  state  of  being.  Heir  to  ten  thousand  infirmities,  the 
body  I  had  tenanted  on  earth  had  returned  to  the  dust,  there 
to  be  dissolved  and  re-compounded  into  other  forms  and  new 
substances.  Yet  the  seminal  principle  of  that  mortal  frame 
had  adhered  to  me;  and  at  the  appointed  season  there  brood- 


226 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


ed  over  it  from  on  high  a  reproductive  and  plastic  influence. 
Fearfully  and  wonderfully  as  I  had  been  made  when  a 
denizen  of  the  world,  the  chemical  affinities,  and  the  com¬ 
plex  organization  of  my  animal  structure,  had  borne  the  im¬ 
press  of  decay,  of  a  transitory  state,  and  of  powers  restrict¬ 
ed  in  their  free  exercise.  Passing  all  comprehension  as 
had  been  the  wisdom  with  which  it  was  adapted  to  the 
purposes  of  my  sublunary  being,  those  purposes  had  been 
ephemeral,  and  circumscribed  within  precincts  which  now 
seemed  to  me  scarcely  wider  than  those  within  which  the 
emmet  plies  her  daily  task.  In  the  career  which  was  now 
opening  to  me,  I  required  a  far  different  instrumentality  to 
give  scope  to  my  new  faculties,  and  to  accomplish  the  ends 
to  which  I  had  learned  to  aspire.  Emancipated  from  the 
petty  cares  and  the  mean  pursuits  in  which,  during  the 
period  of  my  humanity,  I  had  been  immersed,  I  now  in¬ 
habited  and  informed  a  spiritual  body,  not  dissimilar  in 
outward  semblance  to  that  which  I  had  bequeathed  to  the 
worms,  but  uniform  in  texture,  homogeneous  in  every  part, 
and  drawn  from  elements  blended  harmoniously  together, 
into  one  simple,  pure,  and  uncompounded  whole.  Into 
such  perfect  unison  had  my  mental  and  my  corporeal  nature 
been  drawn,  that  it  was  not  without  difficulty  I  admitted 
the  belief  that  I  was  once  again  clothed  with  a  material  in¬ 
tegument.  Experience  was  soon  to  convince  me  that  such 
an  association  was  indispensable  to  the  use  and  to  the  en¬ 
largement  of  my  intellectual  and  moral  powers. 

Emerging  from  the  region  of  separate  spirits  into  my 
next  scene  of  activity  and  social  intercourse,  I  found  my¬ 
self  an  inhabitant  of  the  great  luminary,  around  which 
Mercury  and  his  more  distant  satellites  eternally  revolve. 
In  all  their  unmitigated  radiance  were  floating  around  me, 
those  effulgent  beams  of  light  and  heat  which  so  faintly 
visit  the  obscure  and  distant  planets.  Everlasting  day,  the 
intense  glories  of  an  endless  summer  noon,  rested  on  the 
numbers  without  number  of  intelligent  and  sentient  crea¬ 
tures  who  shared  with  me  my  new  abode.  Incorruptible, 
exempt  from  lassitude,  and  undesirous  of  repose,  they  im¬ 
bibed  energy  from  rays  which  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye 
would  have  dissipated  into  thin  vapour  the  world  and  all 
that  it  inherits.  On  that  opaque  globe,  the  principles  which 
sustain,  and  those  which  destroy  life  had  been  engaged 
within  me  in  a  constant  but  unequal  conflict.  The  quick- 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE, 


227 


ening  spirit  on  earth,  though  continually  recruited  by  rest 
and  sleep,  had  at  length  yielded  to  the  still-recurring  as¬ 
saults  of  her  more  potent  adversaries.  Here  the  vital 
powers  had  no  foes  to  encounter,  and  demanded  no  respite 
from  their  ceaseless  occupation.  In  the  world  below,  from 
man  the  universal  sovereign,  to  the  animalcula  who  people 
a  drop  of  turbid  water,  I  had  seen  all  animated  things  sus¬ 
taining  themselves  by  the  mutual  extermination  of  each 
other.  In  the  solar  sphere  I  found  all  pursuing  their  ap¬ 
pointed  course  of  duty  or  enjoyment,  in  immortal  youth 
and  undecaying  vigour.  Death  had  found  no  entrance, 
life  demanded  no  renewal. 

I  anticipated  the  results  of  the  observations  which  I  gra¬ 
dually  learned  to  make  of  the  difference  between  solar  and 
planetary  existence;  for  on  my  entrance  into  this  untried 
state  of  being,  my  thoughts  were  long  riveted  to  the  change 
which  I  had  myself  undergone.  While  incarcerated  in  my 
tenement  of  clay,  I  had  given  law  to  my  nerves,  muscles, 
and  tendons;  but  they  had  in  turn  imposed  restraints  on  me 
•against  which  it  had  been  vain  to  struggle.  My  corpo¬ 
real  mechanism  had  moved  in  prompt  obedience  to  each 
successive  mandate  of  my  mind;  but  so  fragile  were  the 
materials  of  which  it  was  wrought*  that,  yielding  to  inexo¬ 
rable  necessity,  my  will  had  repressed  innumerable  desires 
which,  if  matured  into  absolute  volitions,  would  have  rent 
asunder  that  frail  apparatus.  I  had  relaxed  the  grasp,  and 
abandoned  the  chase,  and  thrown  aside  the  uplifted  wea¬ 
pon,  as  often  as  my  overstrained  limbs  admonished  me  that 
their  cords  would  give  way  beneath  any  increased  impetus. 
And  when  the  living  power  within  me  had  subjected  my 
fibres  to  the  highest  pressure  which  they  could  safely  en¬ 
dure,  the  arrangement,  and  the  relative  position  of  my  joints 
and  muscles,  had  impeded  all  my  movements,  except  in 
some  circumscribed  and  unalterable  directions.  But  my 
spiritual  body,  incapable  of  waste  or  of  fracture,  and  re¬ 
sponsive  at  every  point  to  the  impact  of  the  indwelling 
mind,  advanced,  receded,  rose  or  fell,  in  prompt  obedience 
to  each  new  volition,  with  a  rapidity  unimpeded,  though 
not  unlimited,  by  the  gravitating  influence  of  the  mighty 
orb  over  the  surface  of  which  I  passed.  At  one  time  I 
soared  as  with  the  wings  of  eagles,  and  at  another  pene¬ 
trated  the  abysses  of  the  deep.  The  docile  and  undestrue- 
tible  instrument  of  my  will  could  outstrip  the  flight  of  the 


228 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


swiftest  arrow,  or  rend  the  knotted  oak,  or  shiver  the  pri¬ 
meval  rocks;  and  then,  contracting  its  efforts,  could  weave 
the  threads  of  the  gossamer  in  looms  loo  subtle  and  eva¬ 
nescent  for  the  touch  of  the  delicate  Ariel. 

While  on  earth  I  had,  like  Milton,  bewailed  that  consti¬ 
tution  of  my  frame  which  admitting  to  knowledge  of  visible 
objects  only  at  one  entrance,  forbade  me  to  converse  with 
them  except  through  the  medium  of  a  single  nerve,  and 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  retina.  Had  the  poet’s 
wish  been  granted,  and  if,  departing  from  her  benignant 
parsimony,  nature  had  exposed  his  sensorium  to  the  full 
influx  of  the  excitements  of  which  it  was  inherently  suscep¬ 
tible,  that  insufferable  glare  would  either  have  annihilated 
the  percipient  faculty,  or  would  have  quickened  it  to  agonies 
unimagined  even  by  his  daring  fancy.  Under  the  shelter 
of  that  material  structure  which  at  once  admitted  and  miti¬ 
gated  the  light,  I  had  in  my  mortal  state  been  accustomed 
to  point  my  telescope  to  the  heavens;  and,  while  measuring 
the  curve  described  round  their  common  centre  by  stars 
which  to  the  unaided  eye  were  not  even  disunited,  I  had 
felt  how  infinitely  far  the  latent  capacities  of  my  soul  for 
corresponding  with  the  aspect  of  the  exterior  world  tran¬ 
scended  such  powers  as  could  be  developed  within  me, 
while  confined  to  the  inadequate  organs  of  vision  afforded 
me  by  nature  or  by  art.  An  immortal,  I  quaffed  at  my 
pleasure  the  streams  of  knowledge  and  of  observation  for 
which  before  I  had  thus  panted  in  vain.  I  could  now  scan 
and  explore  at  large  the  whole  physical  creation.  At  my' 
will  I  could  call  my  visual  powers  into  action  to  the  utmost 
range  of  their  susceptibility;  for  in  my  new  body  I  possessed 
the  properties  of  every  different  lens  in  every  possible  va¬ 
riety  of  combination — expanding,  dissecting,  and  refracting 
at  any  required  angle  the  beams  which  radiated  from  the 
various  substances  around  me,  it  brought  me  intelligence 
of  the  forms,  the  colours,  and  the  movements  of  them  all. 
Assisted  by  this  optical  incarnation,  I  could  survey  the 
luminary  on  which  I  dwelt,  the  globes  whose  orbits  were 
concentric  there,  and,  though  less  distinctly,  the  other  solar 
spheres  which  glowed  in  the  firmament  above  me.  Not 
more  clearly  had  I  deciphered  during  my  sojourn  on  earth 
the  shapes  and  hues  of  the  various  beings  by  which  it  is 
replenished,  than  I  now  discerned  the  aspect  and  the  move¬ 
ments  of  the  countless  species,  animate  and  inanimate,  with 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


229 


which  the  prodigal  munificence  of  creative  will  has  peopled 
the  various  planetary  regions. 

Nor  was  it  through  the  intervention  of  light  merely,  that 
my  altered  corporeity  brought  me  into  communication  with 
the  works  of  the  Divine  Architect.  It  attracted  and  com¬ 
bined  for  my  study  or  my  delight,  all  the  vibratory  move¬ 
ments,  and  all  the  gustatory  and  pungent  emanations,  by 
which  the  sense  is  aroused  and  gratified.  Celestial  har¬ 
mony  floated  around  me,  and  I  breathed  odours  such  as 
exhaled  from  Eden  on  the  fresh  dawn  of  the  world’s  nati¬ 
vity.  In  that  world,  chained  down  by  the  coarse  elements 
of  flesh  and  blood,  I  had  caught  some  transient  glimpses 
of  exterior  things,  through  the  five  portals  which  opened — 
shall  I  say  into  my  fortress  or  my  prison-house?  From  the 
glorious  mansion  which  my  soul  now  inhabited,  pervious 
to  myself  at  every  point,  though  impregnable  to  every  hos¬ 
tile  or  unwelcome  aggression,  I  surveyed  the  things  around 
me  in  aspects  till  now  unimagined.  I  did  not  merely  see, 
and  hear,  taste,  smell,  and  feel,  but  I  exercised  senses  for 
which  the  languages  of  earth  have  no  names,  and  received 
intimations  of  properties  and  conditions  of  matter  unuttera¬ 
ble  in  human  discourse.  Employing  this  instrument  of 
universal  sensation,  the  inner  forms  of  nature  presented 
themselves  before  me  as  vividly  as  her  exterior  types. 
Thus  entering  her  secret  laboratories,  I  was  present  at  the 
composition  and  the  blending  together  of  those  plastic 
energies  of  which  mundane  philosophy  is  content  to  regis¬ 
ter  some  few  of  the  superficial  results.  Each  new  disclo¬ 
sure  afforded  me  a  wider  and  still  lengthening  measure  of 
that  unfathomable  wisdom  and  power,  with  the  more  sub¬ 
lime  emanations  of  which  I  was  thus  becoming  conversant. 
Such  was  the  flexibility  of  my  spiritualized  organs,  that  at 
my  bidding  they  could  absolutely  exclude  every  influence 
from  without,  leaving  me  to  enjoy  the  luxuries  of  medita¬ 
tion  in  profound  and  unassailable  solitude. 

While  thus  I  passed  along  the  solar  regions,  and  made 
endless  accessions  of  knowledge,  I  was  at  first  alarmed  lest 
my  mind  should  have  been  crushed  beneath  the  weight  of 
her  own  conquests,  and  the  whole  should  be  merged  in 
one  chaotic  assemblage  of  confused  recollections.  From 
this  danger  I  was  rescued  by  another  change  in  my  animal 
economy.  During  my  planetary  existence,  the  structure 
and  the  health  of  my  brain  had  exercised  a  despotic  autho- 
20 


230 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


rity  over  my  intellectual  powers.  Then  my  mind  laboured 
ineffectually  over  her  most  welcome  tasks,  if  accident  or 
indigestion  relaxed,  distended,  or  compressed  my  cerebral 
vessels.  For  the  time,  the  tools  with  which  she  wrought 
were  deprived  of  their  brightness  and  their  edge.  At  such 
seasons,  (and  they  were  frequent,)  the  records  of  past  sen¬ 
sations,  and  of  the  thoughts  associated  with  them,  became 
illegible  in  my  memory,  or  could  be  read  there  only  in 
disjointed  fragments.  An  acid  on  his  stomach  would  have 
rendered  vain  the  boast  of  Caesar,  that  he  could  address 
each  of  his  legionaries  by  name.  Even  when  all  my  pulses 
were  beating  with  regularity  and  vigour,  the  best  I  could 
accomplish  was  to  grope  backward  through  my  store  of 
accumulated  knowledge,  holding  by  a  single  thread,  to 
which  my  attention  was  confined,  and  the  loss  of  which 
defeated  ail  my  efforts. 

How  different  the  tablets  on  which  my  observations  of 
the  past  were  recorded  in  my  spiritual  body!  Unconscious 
of  fatigue,  incapable  of  decay,  and  undisturbed  by  any  of 
those  innumerable  processes  essential  to  the  conservation 
of  mortal  life,  it  enabled  me  to  inscribe  in  indelible  lines, 
as  on  some  outstretched  map,  each  successive  perception, 
and  every  thought  to  which  it  had  given  birth.  At  my 
pleasure,  I  could  unroll  and  contemplate  the  entire  chart  of 
my  past  being.  I  could  render  myself  as  absolutely  con¬ 
scious  of  the  former,  as  of  the  present  operations  of  my 
mind,  and  at  one  retrospective  glance  could  trace  back  to 
tlieir  various  fountains  all  the  tributary  streams  which  com¬ 
bined  to  swell  the  current  of  my  immediate  contemplations. 
Gliding  over  the  various  provinces  of  the  solar  world,  and 
gathering  in  each  new  treasures  of  information,  I  deposited 
them  all  beyond  the  reach  of  the  great  spoiler,  Time,  in 
this  ample  storehouse  of  a  plenary  memory.  With  the  in¬ 
crease  of  my  intellectual  hoard,  my  cravings  for  such  wealth 
continuedly  augmented.  It  was  an  avarice  which  no  gains 
could  satiate,  and  to  the  indulgence  of  which  imagination 
itself  could  assign  no  limit. 

I  should,  however,  have  become  the  victim  of  my  own 
avidity  for  knowledge,  if  my  ideas  had  still  obeyed  those 
laws  of  association  to  which,  in  my  telluric  state,  they  had 
been  subject.  Then  it  behooved  my  reason  to  exercise  a 
severe  and  watchful  government.  When  her  control  was 
relaxed,  my  thoughts  would  break  loose  from  all  legitimate 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


231 


restraint.  They  arranged  themselves  into  strange  groups 
and  fantastic  combinations,  and  established  with  each  other 
such  alliances  as  whim,  caprice,  or  accident  suggested. 
These,  once  made,  were  indissoluble.  They  asserted 
their  power  but  too  often,  in  resistance  to  the  sternest 
mandates  of  my  judgment  and  my  will.  But  in  times  of 
debility,  of  disease,  or  of  sleep,  my  ideas  would  combine 
into  heterogeneous  masses,  seething  and  mingling  together, 
like  the  ingredients  of  some  witch’s  caldron,  assembled  by 
her  incantations  to  work  out  some  still  more  potent  spell. 
Over  the  whole  of  this  intoxicating  confusion  presided 
Carnality,  in  all  her  nervous,  cerebral,  vascular,  and  other 
forms,  and  working  by  means  of  all  her  digestive,  secre¬ 
tory,  and  assimilating  processes. 

No  longer  the  inmate  of  a  tremulous  and  sordid  taber¬ 
nacle  of  flesh,  but  inhabiting  a  shrine  pure  and  enduring 
as  her  own  nature,  my  soul  was  now  rescued  from  this 
ignoble  thraldom.  Accident,  appetite,  lassitude,  the  heat 
and  fumes  of  my  animal  laboratory,  had  ceased  to  disturb 
the  supremacy  of  reason.  Instead  of  congregating  as  an 
undisciplined  host,  my  ideas,  as  in  some  stately  procession, 
followed  each  the  other  in  meet  order  and  predetermined 
sequence — their  march  unobstructed  by  any  suggestions  or 
desires  originating  in  my  sensuous  frame.  I  had  become, 
not  the  passive  recipient  of  thought,  but  the  unquestioned 
sovereign  of  my  own  mental  operations.  The  material 
organs,  by  the  aid  of  which  I  now  wrought  them  out, 
obeyed  a  law  like  that  on  which  depends  the  involuntary 
movements  of  the  heart  and  arteries,  unattended  by  any 
conscious  effort,  and  productive  of  no  fatigue.  Every 
increment  of  knowledge  spontaneously  assumed  in  my 
memory  its  proper  place  and  relative  position;  and  the 
whole  of  my  intellectual  resources  fell  into  connected 
chains  of  argument  or  illustration,  which  I  could  traverse 
at  pleasure  from  end  to  end,  still  finding  the  mutual  de- 
pendance  and  adhesion  of  each  successive  link  unbroken. 

To  contemplate  any  truth  in  all  the  relations  in  which  it 
stands  to  every  other  truth,  is  to  possess  the  attribute  of 
omniscience;  but,  in  proportion  as  any  created  intelligence 
can  combine  together  her  ideas  in  their  various  species, 
genera,  classes,  and  orders,  in  the  same  degree  is  dimi¬ 
nished  the  distance  from  the  Supreme  Mind,  immeasura¬ 
ble  and  infinite  as  the  intervening  gulf  must  ever  remain. 


232 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


On  earth  I  had  been  compelled,  by  the  feebleness  of  my 
cerebral  and  nervous  economy,  to  render  my  studies  almost 
exclusively  analytical.  There,  1  had  toiled  to  disencumber 
every  question  of  whatever  might  obscure  the  view  of  the 
isolated  point  proposed  as  the  end  of  my  inquiries.  Mo¬ 
rals  apart  from  physics,  art  disunited  from  logic,  the  science 
of  numbers  and  of  space  detached  from  the  exercise  of  the 
imaginative  power,  even  theology  itself  divorced  from  the 
devout  aspirations  to  which  she  tends,  had  each  in  turn 
engaged  my  earnest  pursuit.  But  to  ascend  those  heights 
from  which  they  could  be  contemplated  as  parts  of  one 
harmonious  whole — to  seize  and  to  blend  together  the 
analogies  pervading  the  works  of  poets  and  mathemati¬ 
cians,  of  naturalists  and  divines — this  was  an  attempt 
which  convinced  me  how  indissoluble  were  the  fetters 
which  riveted  my  soul  to  her  sluggish  associate.  Set  free 
from  this  bondage,  and  supplied  with  an  instrument  of 
sensation  which  kept  pace  with  her  own  inherent  activity, 
she  found  and  desired  no  repose.  Solar  time  is  measured 
by  the  revolutions  of  the  planetary  orbs,  and  from  the  com¬ 
mencement  to  the  completion  of  his  career  through  the  fir¬ 
mament,  Uranus  still  found  me  engaged  in  some  unbroken 
contemplation.  During  that  interval  I  had  completed  some 
vast  synthesis,  in  which  were  at  once  combined  and  dis¬ 
tinguished  all  the  various  aspects  under  which  some  pro¬ 
vince  of  knowledge  had  disclosed  itself  to  my  view.  In 
the  nether  world,  high  discourse  had  been  held  on  the 
connexion  of  the  sciences;  but  now  I  discovered  the  mu¬ 
tual  influence,  the  interaction,  and  the  simultaneous  work¬ 
ings  of  their  different  laws.  I  no  longer  cultivated  the 
exact  sciences  as  a  separate  domain,  but  the  most  severe 
physical  truth  was  revealed  to  me  in  union  with  the  richest 
hues  of  ideal  beauty,  with  the  perfection  of  the  imitative 
arts,  with  the  pure  abstractions  of  metaphysical  thought, 
with  narratives  both  historical  and  romantic,  with  the  pre¬ 
cepts  of  universal  morals,  and  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine 
government.  Ontology — vain-glorious  word  as  used  among 
men — the  knowledge  of  universal  being  as  distinct  from 
species,  and  of  species  as  harmonized  in  universal  being, 
was  the  study  which  engaged  the  time  and  rewarded  the 
labours  of  immortal  minds  animating  spiritual  bodies. 

Let  not  those  who  boast  themselves  in  logic,  Aristotelian 
or  Baconian,  assume  that  their  puny  architecture  of  syllo- 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


233 


gisfic  or  inductive  reasoning  affords  the  rules  by  which  the 
soul,  rescued  from  the  hinderances  of  a  carnal  corporeity, 
erects  for  herself  edifices  of  knowledge,  immovable  in  their 
base,  beautiful  in  their  proportions,  and  towering  in  splen¬ 
did  domes  and  pinnacles  to  the  skies. 

To  Newton  and  to  Pascal  the  theories  of  the  vulgar 
geometry  were  as  instinctively  obvious  as  the  preliminary 
axioms  on  which  they  rest.  While  yet  an  infant,  Mozart 
was  possessed  of  all  those  complex  harmonies  which  a  life 
of  patient  study  scarcely  reveals  to  inferior  masters  of  his 
art.  In  my  planetary  existence,  I  had  rejoiced  in  my 
habitual  aptitude  for  physiology  and  historical  researches, 
nor  had  I  regretted  tiie  years  of  ceaseless  toil  devoted  to 
them.  Now,  I  discovered  that  in  myself,  as  in  the  great 
men  I  have  mentioned,  the  apprehensiveness  of  truth  de¬ 
pended  far  more  on  the  animal  than  the  mental  frame-work. 
Quick  and  vigorous  in  high  bodily  health,  and  sluggish 
and  inert  under  the  pressure  of  corporeal  debility,  I  learned 
that  logic,  experiment,  and  calculation,  had  been  but  so 
many  crutches  to  assist  the  movements  of  the  halt  and 
feeble;  and  that,  with  a  physical  instrumentality  wdiieh 
study  could  not  exhaust  nor  disease  assail,  intuition  took 
the  place  of  reasoning.  I  became  rather  the  conscious  wit® 
ness  than  the  agent  of  the  process  by  which  consequences 
were  evolved  from  the  premises  brought  under  my  notice. 

In  the  society  of  which  I  had  become  a  member,  as  in 
mundane  communities,  discourse  was  amongst  the  chief 
springs  both  of  improvement  and  delight.  So  curiously" 
fashioned  was  the  integument  within  w’hich  my  mind  was 
enveloped,  that,  after  the  manner  of  an  eyelid,  it  could 
either  exclude  the  access  of  anyr  external  excitement,  cre¬ 
ating  within  me  an  absolute  and  impregnable  solitude,  or 
lay  open  to  the  immediate  survey  of  an  associate  any- 
thought  or  combination  of  thoughts  which  I  desired  to 
impart  to  him.  I  had  acquired  two  distinct  languages* 
one  of  visible  signs,  the  other  of  audible  symbols.  The 
first  was  analogous  to  the  mute  dialogue  which  is  car¬ 
ried  on  in  pantomime,  by  gesture  and  the  varying  ex¬ 
pressions  of  the  countenance;  though,  unlike  such  dis* 
course,  it  was  exempt  from  all  conjectural  and  ambiguous 
meanings.  As  in  a  camera  obscura,  my  corporeal  organs 
reflected  the  workings  of  the  informing  spirit;  so  that,  like 
the  ancient  Peruvians,  I  could  converse  as  by  a  series  of 

20* 


234 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


pictures,  produced  and  shifted  with  instantaneous  rapidity. 
This  mode  of  communication  served  my  turn  when  I  had 
any  occurrences  to  relate,  or  any  question  to  discuss,  of 
which  sensuous  objects  formed  the  basis.  But  when  phe¬ 
nomena  purely  psychological,  destitute  of  all  types  in  the 
material  creation,  were  to  be  conveyed  to  a  companion,  I 
had  audible  symbols,  by  which  every  intellectual  concep¬ 
tion,  and  each  fluctuating  state  of  moral  sentiment  might 
be  expressed  as  distinctly  as  geometrical  diagrams  express 
the  corresponding  ideas  to  which  they  are  allied.  By  the 
intermixture  of  pictorial  and  symbolical  speech,  I  could 
thus  render  myself  intelligible  throughout  the  whole  range 
and  compass  of  my  mental  operations,  and  could  give  ut¬ 
terance  to  all  those  subtle  refinements  of  thought  or  of 
sensation,  which,  even  amongst  those  who  spoke  the  ver¬ 
nacular  tongue  of  Plato,  must,  from  the  want  of  fit  and 
determinate  indications  have  either  died  away  in  silence, 
or  have  been  exhaled  in  some  mystic  and  unintelligible 
jargon.  Whatever  distinctness  of  expression  the  pencil  or 
vibratory  chords  enabled  Raphael  or  Handel  to  give  to 
their  sublime  but  otherwise  ineffectual  conceptions,  I  had 
thus  the  power  to  impart  to  each  modification  of  thought, 
and  to  every  shade  of  feeling.  Verbal  controversies,  so¬ 
phistry,  and  all  the  other  “idols  of  the  cavern,”  had  dis¬ 
appeared.  Philosophy  and  her  legitimate  issue,  wisdom, 
piety,  and  love,  were  cultivated  and  treasured  up  by  each 
member  of  the  great  solar  family,  not  as  a  private  hoard, 
to  minister  only  to  his  own  uses,  but  as  a  fund  universally 
communicable,  and  still  augmenting  by  constant  inter¬ 
change. 

It  is  difficult,  or  impossible,  to  speak  intelligibly,  in  the 
language  of  men,  of  the  delights  or  of  the  duties  of  the  state 
of  being  into  which  I  had  thus  entered.  Borne  along  in 
the  vehicle  of  my  spiritual  body,  I  dreaded  no  fatigue,  and 
was  deterred  by  no  danger  in  the  discharge  of  the  most 
arduous  enterprises.  Aspects  of  the  creation,  hidden  from 
me  while  garmented  in  the  gross  elements  of  flesh  and 
blood,  now  burst  on  my  perception  as  light  visits  him  who, 
in  mature  life,  for  the  first  time  acquires  the  visual  faculty. 
Through  each  new  avenue  of  sense  thus  successively  opened 
to  me,  my  soul,  with  raptures  such  as  seraphs  feel,  drew  in 
from  the  still-expanding  circumference  wonder  and  delight, 
and  an  ever  increasing  consciousness  of  the  depths  of  her 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


235 


own  being  and  resources.  Contemplating  the  hidden  forms 
and  the  occult  mechanism  of  the  material  universe,  I  left 
behind  me  the  problems  with  which  physical  science  is 
conversant,  and  advanced  to  that  higher  philosophy  which 
investigates  the  properties  of  spiritual  agents;  and  to  a  theo¬ 
logy,  compared  with  which  that  which  I  had  hitherto  ac¬ 
quired  was  as  insignificant  as  the  inarticulate  babblings  of 
the  cradle.  My  retrospective  consciousness — for  memory 
it  can  scarcely  be  called — spread  out  before  me  scenes,  the 
bright,  harmonious,  and  placid  lights  of  -which  were  mel¬ 
lowed  though  unobscured  by  distance.  Misgivings  as  to 
the  stability  of  my  own  opinions  had  fled  away,  as  the 
truths  with  which  I  was  engaged  presented  themselves  to 
me  simultaneously  in  their  relative  bearings  and  mutual 
dependence.  Love,  pure  and  catholic,  warmed  and  ex¬ 
panded  my  heart,  as  thoughts  wise,  equitable,  and  benign, 
flowed  from  other  minds  into  my  own  in  a  continuous 
stream;  the  pellucid  waters  of  which,  in  the  inherent  trans¬ 
parency  of  our  regenerate  nature,  no  deceit  could  darken 
and  no  guile  pollute.  My  corporeal  fabric,  now  become 
the  passive  instrument  of  my  will,  importuned  me  with  no 
unwelcome  intrusions;  but  buoyant,  flexible,  and  instinct 
with  life  and  vigour,  obeyed  every  volition,  and  obstructed 
the  accomplishment  of  none. 

Yet  had  I  not  passed  into  that  torpid  elysium  of  which 
some  have  dreamed,  and  over  the  descriptions  of  which 
many  more  have  slumbered.  Virtue,  and  her  stern  asso¬ 
ciate  Self-control,  exact  obedience  not  from  the  denizens  of 
earth  alone,  but  from  the  rational  inhabitants  of  every  pro¬ 
vince  of  the  universal  empire.  With  each  accession  of  know¬ 
ledge  and  of  mental  power,  my  view  became  continually 
wider  and  more  extended  of  that  gulf,  which  stretching 
out  in  measureless  infinitude,  separates  the  Source  of  Being 
from  the  most  exalted  of  his  intelligent  offspring.  My 
affiance  in  the  Divine  wisdom  and  rectitude,  reposing 
on  foundations  deep  and  firm  in  proportion  to  my  larger 
acquaintance  with  the  ways  of  Providence,  was  still  neces¬ 
sary  to  sustain  my  trembling  spirit  as  I  meditated  on  the 
mysteries  of  the  Divine  government.  For,  within  the  reach 
of  my  observation,  were  discernible  agonizing  intensities 
of  suffering,  abysses  of  pollution  and  of  guilt,  attesting  the 
awful  powers  both  of  endurance  and  of  activity  of  minds 
ejected  from  the  defences,  and  despoiled  of  the  narcotics, 


23G 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


once  afforded  them  by  their  animal  structure.  Awakened 
to  a  sense  of  their  inherent  though  long-slumbering  energies, 
they  were  captives.  Exposed  to  every  painful  excitement 
by  which  the  sentient  faculty  can  be  stimulated,  they  were 
naked.  Reading  on  the  face  of  nature  inscriptions  till  now 
illegible,  they  saw  in  them  their  own  condemnation.  Re¬ 
membering  each  incident  of  their  former  existence,  they 
found  in  each  fresh  aliment  for  despair.  Disabused  of  the 
illusions  of  sophistry  and  self-love,  truth  shed  on  them  the 
appalling  glare  of  inevitable  light.  Interchanging  thoughts 
without  the  possibility  of  disguise,  every  foul  and  malignant 
desire  diffused  among  them  a  deadly  contagion.  Destitute 
of  any  separate  wants  or  interests,  their  bodies  could  no 
longer  minister  to  them  the  poor  relief  of  an  alternation  of 
distress.  The  reluctant  and  occasional  spectator  of  such 
woes,  I  found  in  faith,  and  hope,  and  meek  adoration,  the 
solace  which  my  labouring  spirit  required— a  task  commen¬ 
surate  with  my  now  elevated  powers,  though  the  firmest 
and  the  holiest  of  mortals,  while  yet  detained  in  his  tene¬ 
ment  of  flesh,  would  have  been  crushed  and  maddened 
beneath  the  burden  of  that  fearful  sight. 

In  the  schools  of  the  world,  I  had  wandered  in  the  end¬ 
less  mazes  of  fate  and  free-will,  and  the  origin  of  evil.  An 
inhabitant,  of  the  great  celestial  luminary,  I  became  aware 
of  relations  till  then  unheard  of  and  inconceivable;  between 
the  Emanative  Essence  and  the  hosts  of  subordinate  spirits, 
and  of  questions  thence  resulting,  of  such  strange  and 
mighty  import,  that,  prostrating  myself  before  the  wisdom 
and  benevolence  of  the  Most  High,  I  was  still  compelled, 
in  reverential  awe,  to  acknowledge  how  inscrutable  even 
to  my  expanded  capacity  was  the  thick  darkness  which 
shrouds  his  secret  pavilion. 

Nor  were  there  wanting  tasks,  which  summoned  to  the 
utmost  height  of  daring  the  most  courageous  of  the  inhabi¬ 
tants  of  the  sphere  to  which  I  had  been  translated.  Glo¬ 
rious  recompense  was  to  be  won  by  deeds  such  as  immortal 
beings  only  could  undertake  or  meditate.  Ministers  of  the 
Supreme,  we  braved  at  his  bidding  the  privation  of  all  other 
joys  in  the  delight  of  prompt  obedience  to  his  will.  We 
waged  with  his  enemies  fierce  conflicts,  and  exposed  our¬ 
selves  to  ills,  intense  during  their  continuance,  in  proportion 
to  the  exquisite  sensibilities  of  our  purified  corporeity.  Im¬ 
pelled  by  irresistible  compassion,  by  the  cravings  of  insa- 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


237 


tiable  benevolence,  or  by  the  vehement  desire  to  obtain  or 
to  impart  tidings  affecting  the  happiness  of  our  own  or  of 
other  orders  of  thinking  beings,  our  active  powers,  with  all 
our  resources  of  constancy,  magnanimity,  and  prudence, 
were  called  into  habitual  exercise;  nor  were  there  wanting 
dignities  to  be  attained,  or  sceptres  to  be  won,  as  the  meet 
reward  of  illustrious  achievements. 


When  Astolpho  descended  on  the  hippogriff  from  his 
lunar  voyage,  his  first  employment  was  to  disenchant  the 
infuriate  knight,  on  whose  deliverance  he  had  been  bent 
when  an  ill-timed  curiosity  led  him  so  far  a*field.  Even 
so,  returning  from  the  solar  sphere  to  which  the  theory  of 
a  future  life  has  unexpectedly  conducted  us,  we  must  dis¬ 
solve  the  fiction  under  which  we  have  thus  far  proceeded, 
and  restore  the  theorist  himself  to  his  sublunary  life,  which 
he  is  so  well  able  to  enjoy  and  to  improve.  No  longer  the 
imaginary  biographers  either  of  his  terrestrial  or  his  celes¬ 
tial  career,  but  mere  contemporary  critics,  we  must  exempt 
him  from  all  responsibility  for  so  much  as  a  single  word  of 
this  narrative  of  his  immortal  existence.  It  exhibits,  with 
at  least  no  intentional  inaccuracy,  the  substance  of  anticipa¬ 
tions,  which,  if  regarded  but  as  a  chapter  in  some  new 
Atlantis,  might  be  borne  with  as  indulgently  as  other  Uto¬ 
pian  discoveries,  which  the  world  has  been  none  the  worse 
for  contrasting  with  the  genuine  but  vapid  pleasures  of  this 
transitory  state.  That  a  veil  absolutely  impenetrable  con¬ 
ceals  from  us  the  realities  of  that  condition  into  which  all 
the  successive  generations  of  men  have  passed,  and  into 
which  we  are  following  them,  no  one  will  seriously  dispute. 
But  neither  can  it  be  denied  that  to  penetrate  that  dark  abyss 
is  at  once  a  desire  which  has  been  felt,  and  an  attempt  wrhich 
has  been  made  by  every  race,  nay  almost  by  every  indivi¬ 
dual  of  our  species. 

If  Scipio  had  his  dream  of  colloquies  after  death  with  the 
wise  and  good  of  all  ages,  the  Esquimaux  has  his  heaven 
where  seal-skins  may  be  procured  in  placid  seas,  and  un¬ 
dying  lamps  are  fed  with  inexhaustible  supplies  of  the 
odorous  grease  of  bears.  Mahomet  promised  his  Arabian 
converts  “rivers  of  incorruptible  water  and  rivers  of  milk, 
the  taste  wrhereof  changeth  not;  gardens  planted  with  shady 
trees,  in  each  of  which  shall  be  two  flowing  fountains; 
couches,  the  linings  whereof  shall  be  of  thick  silk  inter¬ 
woven  with  gold,  and  beauteous  damsels,  refraining  their 


238 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


eyes  from  beholding  any  but  their  spouses,  having  com¬ 
plexions  like  rubies  and  pearls,  and  fine  black  eyes.”  The 
stream  can  rise  no  higher  than  the  fountain.  Our  ideas  of 
immortal  good  are  but  amplifications  of  our  mortal  enjoy¬ 
ments.  To  sublimate  our  conceptions  of  felicity,  by  asso¬ 
ciating  together  all  innocent  and  not  incompatible  delights, 
and  by  subtracting  from  them  every  alloy  of  pain,  satiety, 
and  languor,  is  to  create  for  ourselves  the  only  heaven  with 
the  contemplation  of  which  hope  can  be  sustained  and  ac¬ 
tivity  invigorated.  He  who  carefully  surveys  the  elysium 
which  reason  or  imagination  has  laid  out  and  planted  for 
him  in  the  next  world,  will  acquire  far  better  acquaintance 
with  the  “  happy  gardens”  to  which  choice  or  fortune  has 
directed  him  in  this.  Judged  by  this  standard,  and  giving 
him  credit  for  having  made  his  public  confessions  with  en¬ 
tire  candour,  the  author  of  the  “  Theory  of  a  Future  Life” 
may  be  esteemed  a  wise  and  happy  man — wise,  because 
he  has  no  fear  of  acknowledging  to  himself  or  to  others  the 
dependence  of  his  spiritual  on  his  animal  economy,  and 
affects  no  superhuman  disdain  of  mere  bodily  gratifications; 
and  happy,  because  his  felicity  consists  in  bringing  the 
body  into  that  unresisting  servitude  to  the  mind,  without 
which  freedom  and  serenity  are  but  empty  words.  Such 
as  is  his  paradise  in  the  highest  conceivable  degree,  such 
in  the  highest  attainable  degree  must  be  his  earthly  Eden. 
Dismiss  it  if  you  will  as  a  midsummer  night’s  dream;  yet  must 
it  be  confessed  that  it  is  such  a  dream  as  could  visit  no  slum¬ 
bers  but  those  of  one  whose  fancy  was  pure  from  sensual  de¬ 
filement,  and  whose  intellect  had  been  trained  to  active  ex¬ 
ercise  and  to  close  self-observation.  Or,  give  the  theorist 
credit  for  nothing  more  than  having  skilfully  selected  the 
most  alluring  possibilities  of  future  good  from  the  many 
celestial  schemes  with  which  the  poetry  and  the  poetical 
prose  of  all  ages  abounds,  and  still  it  will  be  true  that  the 
choice  has  been  guided  by  opinions  such  as  every  one 
would  wish  to  adopt,  and  by  tastes  which  in  our  better 
moments  we  should  all  desire  to  gratify.  The  time  sub¬ 
tracted,  for  such  visions,  from  the  scarcely  more  substan¬ 
tial  delights  among  which  we  are  living,  will  send  us  back 
to  the  cares  of  life,  not  less  fitted  resolutely  to  endure  them, 
and  to  the  pleasures  of  life,  not  less  prepared  wisely  to 
enjoy  them. 

Style  in  literature  is  like  manner  in  society — the  super- 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


239 


jficial  index,  which  all  can  read,  of  internal  qualities  which 
few  can  decipher.  If  the  author  of  these  books  had  cared, 
or  had  been  able,  to  write  with  ease  and  simplicity,  or  had 
he  disguised  his  meaning  under  spasmodic  contortions,  or 
had  he  talked  over  these  grave  matters  in  the  tone  of  a  blunt 
and  sagacious  humorist,  or  had  he  dissolved  them  in  reli¬ 
gious  sentiment,  or  flattened  them  down  to  the  level  of  a 
monotonous  orthodoxy;  in  short,  had  he  either  risen  to  the 
graces  of  nature,  or  condescended  to  those  of  affectation, 
he  would  have  had  more  numerous  and  enthusiastic  ad¬ 
mirers.  Language  in  his  hands  is  an  instrument  of  won¬ 
derful  volume,  flexibility,  and  compass;  but  produces  har¬ 
monies  of  such  recondite  elaboration,  that  the  sense  aches 
for  the  even  flow  of  a  few  plain  words  quietly  taking  their 
proper  places.  Felicitous  expression  is  an  excellent  thing 
in  its  season;  but  serve  up  a  whole  octavo  full  of  exquisite 
sentences,  and  neither  the  guest  nor  the  cook  himself  can 
clearly  tell  what  the  repast  is  made  of.  In  the  works  of 
the  historian  of  Enthusiasm,  as  in  those  of  Dr.  Channing, 
penury  and  affluence  of  thought  are  made  to  look  so  like 
each  other,  that  they  must  be  undressed  in  order  to  be  dis¬ 
tinguished;  and  while  he  is  making  out  which  is  which, 
the  courteous  reader  is  apt  to  lose  his  courtesy.  In  propor¬ 
tion  as  he  is  the  more  profound  thinker  of  the  two,  the  Eng¬ 
lishman  is  the  more  to  be  upbraided  for  the  perverse  inge¬ 
nuity  which  thus  mars  his  own  success.  Objects  so  elevated 
as  his,  should  not  have  been  exposed  to  such  hazard.  What 
those  objects  are  has  already  been  partly  explained,  but 
they  demand  additional  illustration. 

Secluded  from  the  worlds  of  business  and  of  literature, 
but  a  keen  observer  of  both,  and  viewing  all  sublunary 
things  in  their  bearing  on  the  eternal  welfare  of  mankind, 
our  author  mourned  over  the  low  estate  of  theology  amongst 
us,  and  of  those  higher  intellectual  pursuits  with  which 
theology  maintains  an  indissoluble  connexion.  We  are 
constrained  to  doubt  whether  his  regrets  are  as  wisely  in¬ 
dulged  as  they  are  eloquently  expressed. 

Christianity  is  for  the  daily  use  of  homely  people.  Pre¬ 
cepts  affecting  all  the  happiness  of  this  life,  and  doctrines 
involving  all  the  interests  of  the  next,  are  not  to  be  deli¬ 
vered  in  that  honeyed  discourse  which  steeps  the  soul  in 
self-oblivion.  When  truth  appears  amongst  mankind  in  her 
severe  and  native  majesty,  she  rejects  the  services  of  her  ac- 


240 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


customed  handmaids,  erudition,  poetry,  rhetoric,  philoso¬ 
phy,  and  criticism.  Eloquence  alone  attends  her,  but  it  is  an 
eloquence  of  which  the  mere  words  are  unheeded — a  wea¬ 
pon  of  such  edge  and  temper  as  to  be  irresistible  in  the 
grasp  of  the  feeblest  hand. 

And  feeble  indeed  are  many  of  those  which  attempt  to 
draw  this  Durindana  from  the  scabbard.  Malignity  itself 
cannot  accuse  our  pulpits  and  theological  presses  of  be¬ 
guiling  us  by  the  witchcraft  of  genius.  They  stand  clear 
of  the  guilt  of  ministering'  to  the  disordered  heart  the  ano- 
dynes  of  wit  or  fancy.  Abstruse  and  profound  sophistries 
are  not  in  the  number  of  their  offences.  It  is  a  mere  calum¬ 
ny,  to  accuse  them  of  lulling  the  conscience  to  repose  by 
any  Syren  songs  of  imagination.  If  the  bolts  of  inspired 
truth  are  diverted  from  their  aim,  it  is  no  longer  by  enticing 
words  of  man’s  wisdom.  Divinity  fills  up  her  weekly  hour 
by  the  grave  and  gentle  excitement  of  an  orthodox  discourse, 
or  by  toiling  through  her  narrow  round  of  systematic  dog¬ 
mas,  or  by  creeping  along  some  low  level  of  schoolboy 
morality,  or  by  addressing  the  initiated  in  mythic  phrase¬ 
ology;  but  she  has  ceased  to  employ  lips  such  as  those  of 
Chrysostom  or  Bourdaloue.  The  sanctity  of  sacred  things 
is  lost  in  the  familiar  routine  of  sacred  words.  Religion 
has  acquired  a  technology,  and  a  set  of  conventional  for¬ 
mulas,  torpifying  those  who  use  and  those  who  hear  them. 
Her  literature  also  bears  the  impress  of  an  age  in  which  the 
art  of  writing  has  well-nigh  proved  fatal  to  the  power  of 
thinking;  when  the  desire  to  appropriate  gracefully  has  su¬ 
perseded  the  ambition  to  originate  profoundly;  when  the 
commercial  spirit  envelops  and  strangles  genius  in  its  folds; 
W'hen  demigods  and  heroes  have  abandoned  the  field;  and 
the  holiest  affections  of  the  heart  die  away  in  silence;  and 
the  ripest  fruits  of  the  teeming  mind  drop  ungathered  into 
the  reaper’s  bosom; — an  age  of  literary  democracy  and  in¬ 
tellectual  socialism,  in  which  no  bequests  are  made  to  re¬ 
mote  posterities,  and  no  structures  are  rising  to  command 
and  break  the  universal  mediocrity. 

From  the  retirement  which  he  knows  so  well  how  to 
describe  and  to  enjoy,  our  author  casts  a  mournful  gaze 
round  this  dreary  horizon.  Acquainted,  perhaps,  but  too 
distinctly  with  the  religious  parlies  of  his  native  land — their 
infirmities  and  their  faults,  he  longed  for  the  advent  of  a 
more  catholic  spirit,  of  a  more  intense  and  unostentatious 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


241 


piety,  and  of  theological  studies  animated  by  some  nobler 
impulse  than  the  hire  of  booksellers  or  the  praise  of  ephe¬ 
meral  critics.  By  expostulation  and  by  example  he  has 
endeavoured  thus  to  regenerate  the  national  character.  Nor 
are  the  qualifications  which  he  has  devoted  to  this  enter¬ 
prise  of  an  ordinary  kind.  Measured  by  Etonian  and 
Christchurch  standards,  he  may  not  be  entitled  to  a  place 
amongst  accomplished  scholars;  but  he  possesses  stores  of 
knowledge  which  might  atone,  could  such  guilt  admit  of 
expiation,  even  for  the  crime  of  a  false  quantity.  Familiar 
with  the  elements,  at  least,  of  all  physical  science,  and  in¬ 
timately  conversant  with  ecclesiastical  history,  he  has  ex¬ 
plored  the  enigmas  of  the  human  heart,  even  too  deeply 
for  his  own  repose.  His  bosom  yearned,  and  his  mind 
toiled  for  the  happiness  of  mankind;  but  his  labours  would 
seem  not  to  be  well  sustained  by  the  cheering  influence  of 
hope.  He  loves  children,  for  they  are  as  yet  exempt  from 
the  prevailing  degeneracy;  and  the  face  of  nature,  for  it  re¬ 
flects  the  creative  intelligence;  and  books,  for  they  are  the 
depositories  of  human  wisdom;  and  the  universal  church, 
for  it  is  the  ark  freighted  with  the  best  treasures,  and  charged 
with  the  destinies  of  our  race.  Man  also  he  loves,  but  with 
feelings  pensive  if  not  melancholy,  and  fastidious  even  when 
most  benignant.  In  his  many  books,  there  is  not  a  tinge  of 
spleen;  but  they  exhibit  that  disgust  for  the  follies  and  the 
vices  of  the  world,  which  with  some  is  the  aliment  of  sa¬ 
tire,  with  others  a  fascination  alluring  them  to  the  very 
evils  they  despise,  with  a  few,  amongst  whom  our  author 
must  take  his  place,  at  once  a  summons  to  exertion  and  a 
motive  to  sadness. 

Casting  off  these  depressing  influences,  he  has  devoted 
all  the  resources  of  a  comprehensive  understanding,  and  all 
the  affections  of  a  benevolent  heart,  to  correct  the  general 
debasement,  and  to  exhibit  a  model  of  those  higher  pur¬ 
suits  to  which  he  would  reclaim  his  generation.  Enthu¬ 
siasts,  fanatics,  spiritual  despots,  sciolists  in  education — 
pastors  who  slumber  within  the  fold,  and  the  robbers  who 
spoil  it,  form  a  confederacy,  the  assailant  of  which  should 
be  encouraged  by  the  gratitude  of  all  good  men.  If  the 
sold  of  William  Covvper  has  transmigrated  into  any  human 
frame,  it  is  that  of  the  historian  of  Enthusiasm.  Not,  in¬ 
deed,  that  the  poet  has  found  a  successor  in  the  magic  art 
of  establishing  a  personal  and  affectionate  intimacy  between 
21 


242 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


himself  and  his  readers.  There  is  no  new  fire-side  like  that 
of  Olney  round  which  we  can  gather;  nor  any  walks  like 
those  of  Western  Underwood,  of  which  we  are  the  com¬ 
panions;  nor  a  heart  at  once  broken  and  playful,  whose  sor¬ 
rows  and  amusements  are  our  own;  nor  are  we  surrounded 
by  a  family  group,  with  tame  hares,  spaniels,  bird-cages, 
and  knitting-needles,  as  familiar  to  us  as  those  of  our  own 
boyhood,  and  almost  as  dear, — each  in  turn  reflecting  the 
gentle,  thoughtful,  elevated  mind  of  him  to  whom  they  be¬ 
longed,  in  all  its  vicissitudes  of  despondency  and  hope,  of 
grave  wisdom,  and  of  mirth  as  light  and  pure  as  that  of  in¬ 
fancy.  This  is  the  high  prerogative  of  genius,  addressing 
mankind  at  large  through  the  vernacular  idiom  of  one  land 
in  the  universal  language  of  all. 

But  Stamford  Rivers,  the  dwelling-place  of  the  anony¬ 
mous  writer  of  these  volumes,  has  given  birth  to  a  succes¬ 
sion  of  efforts  to  exalt  the  national  character,  which  might 
vie  with  those  of  Olney  and  of  Weston  in  piety  and  ear¬ 
nestness,  in  genuine  freedom  of  thought,  in  the  relish  for 
domestic  pleasures,  and  for  all  the  innocent  delights  of  life, 
in  the  filial  love  of  God,  and  the  brotherly  love  of  man. 
Learning  and  logical  acumen,  and  a  certain  catholicity 
of  mind,  which  the  poet  neither  possessed  nor  needed, 
impart  to  the  works  of  the  essayist  a  charm,  without  which 
it  is  vain,  in  these  days,  to  interfere  in  the  debates  which 
agitate  society.  There  is  a  charm,  too,  even  in  his  distaste 
for  the  pursuits  most  in  request  amongst  us ;  for  it  springs 
from  the  grandeur  of  the  ideal  excellence  by  which  his 
imagination  is  possessed.  Omniscence,  though  veiling  its 
intimations  in  the  coarse  mantle  of  human  language,  will 
still  emit  some  gleams  of  that  radiance  which  illumines  the 
regions  of  the  blessed ;  and  these  he  would  reverently 
gather  and  concentrate.  There  is  in  Christianity  an  ex¬ 
pansive  power,  sometimes  repressed  but  never  destroyed; 
and  that  latent  energy  he  strives  to  draw  forth  into  life  and 
action.  Those  mysteries  which  shroud  the  condition  and 
the  prospects  of  our  race,  however  inscrutable  to  the  slaves 
of  appetite,  are  not  absolutely  impervious  to  a  soul  purified 
by  devout  contemplation  ;  and  to  these  empyreal  heights 
he  aspires  at  once  to  point  and  to  lead  the  way.  To  him 
whose  foot  is  firmly  planted  on  the  eternal  verities  of 
Heaven,  there  belong  motives  of  such  force,  and  a  courage 
so  undaunted,  as  should  burst  through  all  resistance;  and 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


243 


he  calls  on  those  who  enjoy  this  high  privilege  to  assert 
their  native  supremacy  above  the  sordid  ambition,  the  fri¬ 
volities,  and  the  virulence  of  the  lower  world.  The  voice 
thus  raised  in  expostulation  will  die  away,  not  unheeded 
by  the  interior  circle  he^  addresses,  nor  unblessed  by  a 
meet  recompense;  but  unrewarded,  we  fear,  by  the  ac¬ 
complishment  of  these  exalted  purposes.  Eloquent  as  is 
the  indignation  with  which  our  anonymous  monitor  re¬ 
gards  the  low  level  to  which  divine  and  human  literature 
has  fallen  amongst  us,  and  mean  as  is  his  estimate  of  the 
pursuits  with  which  the  men  of  his  own  days  are  engaged, 
a  hope  may  perhaps,  without  presumption,  be  indulged, 
that  less  fastidious  and  not  less  capable  judges  will  pro¬ 
nounce  a  more  lenient  sentence  on  us  and  on  our  doings. 

In  the  great  cycle  of  human  affairs  there  are  many  stages, 
each  essential  to  the  consummation  of  the  designs  of  Pro¬ 
vidence,  and  each  separated  by  broad  distinctions  from  the 
rest.  They  whose  province  it  is  to  censure,  and  they 
whose  desire  it  is  to  improve  their  age,  will  never  find 
their  sacred  fires  extinct  from  the  mere  want  of  fuel.  His¬ 
tory  and  theory  are  always  at  hand  with  humiliating  con¬ 
trasts  to  the  times  we  live  in.  That  men  have  been  better 
or  might  be  better  than  they  are,  has  been  true  since  the 
first  fathers  of  our  race  returned  to  their  native  dust,  and 
will  still  be  true  as  long  as  our  planet  shall  be  inhabited  by 
their  descendants.  But  below  the  agitated  surface  of  the 
ocean,  under-currents  are  silently  urging  forward,  on  their 
destined  path,  the  waters  of  the  mighty  deep,  themselves 
impelled  by  that  Power  which  none  may  question  or  resist. 
Human  society  obeys  a  similar  influence.  Laws  as  ano- 
malous  in  appearance,  as  uniform  in  reality,  as  those  which 
direct  the  planetary  movements,  determine  the  present  state, 
and  regulate  the  progress  of  commonwealths,  whether 
political,  literary,  or  religious.  Christianity  demands  the 
belief,  and  experience  justifies  the  hope,  that  their  ultimate 
tendency  is  towards  the  universal  dominion  of  piety  and 
virtue.  But  it  is  neither  pious  nor  rational  to  suppose, 
that  this  consummation  can  be  attained  by  any  sequence  of 
identical  causes  constantly  working  out  similar  effects. 
The  best  generations,  like  the  best  men,  are  those  which 
possess  an  individual  and  distinctive  character.  A  chain 
of  splendid  biographies  constitutes  the  history  of  past  cen¬ 
turies.  Whoever  shall  weave  the  chronicles  of  our  own, 


244 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


must  take  for  his  staple  statistics  illuminated  by  a  skilful 
generalization.  Once  every  eye  was  directed  to  the  leaders 
of  the  world;  now  all  are  turned  to  the  masses  of  which  it 
is  composed'.  Instead  of  Newtons  presiding  over  royal 
societies,  we  have  Dr.  Birkbecks  lecturing  at  mechanics’ 
institutes.  If  no  Wolseys  arise  to  found  colleges  like  that 
of  Christchurch,  Joseph  Lancaster  and  William  Bell  have 
emulated  each  other  in  works  not  less  momentous  at  the 
Borough  Road  and  Baldwin’s  Gardens.  We  people  con¬ 
tinents,  though  we  have  ceased  to  discover  them.  We 
abridge  folios  for  the  many,  though  we  no  longer  write 
them  for  the  few.  Our  fathers  compiled  systems  of 
divinity — we  compose  pocket  theological  libraries.  They 
invented  sciences,  we  apply  them.  Literature  was  once 
an  oligarchy,  it  is  now  a  republic.  Our  very  moni¬ 
tors  are  affected  with  the  degeneracy  they  deplore.  For 
the  majestic  cadence  of  Milton,  and  the  voluptuous  flow 
of  Jeremy  Taylor’s  periods,  they  substitute  the  rhetorical 
philosophy,  invented  some  fifty  years  since,  to  counter¬ 
vail  the  philosophical  rhetoric  of  the  French  Revolution; 
and  put  forth,  in  a  collection  of  essays  for  the  drawing¬ 
room,  reproofs  which  the  hands  of  Prynne  would  have 
moulded  into  learned,  fierce,  and  ponderous  folios. 

It  is  impossible  to  prevent — is  it  wise  to  bewail,  this 
change  in  our  social  and  intellectual  habits?  During  the 
inundations  of  the  Nile,  the  worship  of  the  mysterious 
river  ceased,  and  no  hymns  were  heard  to  celebrate  its 
glories.  Idolatry  lost  its  stay,  and  imagination  her  excite¬ 
ment;  but  the  land  was  fertilized.  Learning,  once  banked 
up  in  universities  and  cathedrals,  is  now  diffused  through 
shops  and  factories.  The  stream,  then  so  profound  and 
limpid,  may  now,  perhaps,  be  both  shallow  and  muddy. 
But  is  it  better  that  the  thirst  of  a  whole  nation  should 
be  thus  slaked,  or  that  the  immortals  should  be  quaffing 
their  nectar  apart  in  sublime  abstraction  from  the  multi¬ 
tude?  There  is  no  immediate  and  practicable  reconcile¬ 
ment  of  these  advantages.  Genius,  and  wit,  and  science, 
and  whatever  else  raises  man  above  his  fellows,  must  bend 
to  the  universal  motives  of  human  conduct.  When  honour, 
wealth,  public  gratitude,  and  the  sense  of  good  desert, 
reward  those  who  teach  elementary  truth  to  the  people  at 
large,  the  wisest  and  the  best  will  devote  to  that  office 
powers,  which,  in  a  different  age,  would  have  been  conse- 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE, 


245 


crated  to  more  splendid,  though  not  perhaps  to  more  wor¬ 
thy  undertakings. 

In  the  state  of  letters,  there  is  no  maintaining  a  polity 
in  which  the  three  elements  of  power  are  blended  together 
in  harmonious  counterpoise.  There  a  monarch  infallibly 
becomes  a  despot,  and  a  democracy  subjugates  to  itself 
whatever  else  is  eminent,  or  illustrious.  Divines,  poets, 
and  philosophers,  addressing  millions  of  readers  and  my¬ 
riads  of  critics,  are  immediately  rewarded  by  an  applause, 
or  punished  by  a  neglect,  to  which  it  is  not  given  to  mortal 
man  to  be  superior  or  indifferent.  Inform  the  national 
mind,  and  improve  the  general  taste  up  to  a  certain  point, 
and  to  that  point  you  inevitably  depress  the  efforts  of  those 
who  are  born  to  instruct  the  rest.  Had  Spenser  flourished 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  would  he  have  aspired  to  pro¬ 
duce  the  Faery  Queen?  Had  Walter  Scott  lived  in  the 
sixteenth,  would  he  have  condescended  to  write  the  Lady 
of  the  Lake?  Our  great  men  are  less  great  because  our 
ordinary  men  are  less  abject.  These  lamentations  over  the 
results  of  this  compromise  are  rather  pathetic  than  just.  It 
forms  one  indispensable  chapter  in  the  natural  history  of  a 
people’s  intellectual  progress.  It  is  one  of  the  stages 
through  which  the  national  mind  must  pass  towards  the 
general  elevation  of  literature,  sacred  and  profane.  We 
know  not  how  to  regret,  that  genius  has  from  the  moment 
abdicated  her  austere  supremacy,  and  stooped  to  be  popu¬ 
lar  and  plain.  Mackintosh  surrendered  his  philosophy  to 
the  compilation  of  a  familiar  history  of  England.  Faith¬ 
less  to  his  Peris  and  Glendoveers,  Mr.  Moore  is  teaching 
the  commonalty  of  the  realm  the  sad  tale  of  the  woes  in¬ 
flicted  on  the  land  of  his  birth.  No  longer  emulous  of 
Person,  the  Bishop  of  London  devotes  his  learned  leisure 
to  preparing  cheap  and  easy  lessons  for  the  householders 
of  his  diocess.  Lord  Brougham  arrests  the  current  of  his 
eloquence,  to  instruct  mechanics  in  the  principles  of  the 
sciences  which  they  are  reducing  to  daily  practice.  Tracis 
for  the  times  are  extorted  from  the  depositories  of  ecclesi¬ 
astical  tradition,  obedient  to  the  general  impulse  which 
they  condemn,  and  constrained  to  render  the  Church  argu¬ 
mentative,  that  they  may  render  her  oracular.  Nay,  the 
author  of  the  “  Natural  History  of  Enthusiasm  ”  himself, 
despite  his  own  protests,  yields  at  length  to  the  current, 
and  has  become  the  periodical  writer  of  monthly  tracts, 

21* 


246 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


where,  in  good  round  controversial  terms,  the  superficial 
multitude  are  called  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  claims  of  the 
early  fathers  to  sound  doctrine,  good  morals,  and  common 
sense.  Let  who  will  repine  at  what  has  passed,  and  at 
what  is  passing,  if  they  will  allow  us  to  rejoice  in  what  is 
to  come.  If  we  witness  the  growth  of  no  immortal  repu¬ 
tations,  we  see  the  expansion  of  universal  intelligence.  The 
disparities  of  human  understanding  are  much  the  same  in 
all  times  ;  but  it  is  when  the  general  level  is  the  highest 
that  the  mighty  of  the  earth  rise  to  the  most  commanding 
eminences. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  justice  of  the  hopes  we  thus 
indulge  for  future  generations,  our  business  is  with  our¬ 
selves.  If,  as  we  think,  they  are  well  judging  who  devote 
the  best  gifts  of  nature  an(J  of  learning  to  the  instruction  of 
the  illiterate,  the  praise  of  wisdom  is  not  to  be  denied  to 
such  as  write  with  the  more  ambitious  aim  of  stimulating 
the  nobler  intellects  amongst  us  to  enterprises  commensu¬ 
rate  with  their  elevated  powers. 

No  strenuous  effort  for  the  good  of  mankind  was  ever 
yet  made  altogether  in  vain;  nor  will  those  of  our  author 
be  fruitless,  though  the  results  may  fall  far  short  of  his  as¬ 
pirations.  The  general  currents  of  thought  and  action  can 
never  be  diverted  from  their  channels,  except  by  minds  as 
rarely  produced  as  they  are  wonderfully  endowed.  Energy, 
decision,  and  a  self-reliance,  independent  of  human  praise 
or  censure,  are  amongst  their  invariable  characteristics.  To 
this  sublime  order  of  men  the  Recluse  of  Stamford  Rivers 

i 

does  not  belong.  Nor  can  a  place  be  assigned  to  him 
among  those  calmer  spirits,  whose  inventive  genius,  or 
popular  eloquence,  has  enabled  them  from  their  solitudes 
to  cast  on  the  agitated  masses  of  society  seeds  of  thought 
destined  at  some  future  period  to  change  the  aspect  of  hu¬ 
man  affairs.  He  is  an  independent  more  than  an  original 
thinker.  He  is  rather  exempt  from  fear  than  animated  by 
ardent  courage  in  announcing  the  fruits  of  his  inquiries.  A 
great  master  of  language,  he  is  himself  but  too  often  mas¬ 
tered  by  it.  He  is  too  much  the  creature,  to  become  the 
reformer,  of  his  age.  His  assiduity  to  please  is  fatal  to  his 
desire  to  command.  His  efforts  to  move  the  will  are  de¬ 
feated  by  his  success  in  dazzling  the  fancy.  Yet  his  books 
exhibit  a  character,  both  moral  and  intellectual,  from  the 
study  of  which  the  reader  can  hardly  fail  to  rise  a  wiser 


PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  ANOTHER  LIFE. 


247 


and  a  better  man.  Standing  aloof  from  all  vulgar  excite¬ 
ments,  heedless  of  the  transient  politics  and  the  fugitive 
literature  of  his  times,  and  intent  only  on  the  permanent 
interests  of  mankind,  he  has  laboured  to  promote  them  with 
an  honest  love  of  truth,  aided  by  brilliant  talents,  compre¬ 
hensive  knowledge,  and  undaunted  intrepidity.  And  thus 
he  has  come  under  the  guidance  of  principles,  which  no 
man  can  cultivate  in  his  own  b«som,  or  earnestly  impart 
to  other  minds,  without  earning  a  reward  which  will  ren¬ 
der  human  applause  insignificant,  or  reduce  the  neglect  of 
the  wdrld  to  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference. 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.* 

(Edinburgh  Review,  1841.) 

• 

All  religions,  and  all  ages,  have  their  saints;  their  men 
of  unearthly  mould;  self-conquerors;  sublime  even  in  their 
errors;  not  altogether  hateful  in  their  very  crimes.  If  a 
man  would  understand  the  dormant  powers  of  his  own  na¬ 
ture,  let  him  read  the  Acta  Sanctorum.  Or,  if  “  too  high 
this  price  of  knowledge,”  let  him  at  least  acquaint  himself 
with  the  legends  of  the  later  heroes  of  the  Gallican  Church. 
Of  all  ascetics  they  were  the  least  repulsive.  They  waged 
war  on  dulness  with  the  ardour  of  Dangeau  and  St.  Simon, 
and  with  still  better  success.  While  macerating  their  bodies 
in  the  cloisters  of  Port-Royal,  they  did  not  cease  to  be  French 
men  and  French  women  of  the  Augustan  age.  While  prac¬ 
tising  the  monastic  virtue  of  silence  their  social  spirit 
escaped  this  unwelcome  restraint,  in  a  body  of  Memoirs  as 
copious  as  those  which  record  the  splendour  and  the  mise¬ 
ries  of  Versailles.  In  a  series  of  volumes,  of  which  the 
above  is  the  first,  the  author  is  about  to' tell  their  story  in 
the  language  (vernacular  and  erudite)  of  his  country  and 
his  times.  A  rapid  sketch  of  it  may  be  of  use  in  directing 
the  attention  of  our  readers  to  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
episodes  in  ecclesiastical  history. 

He  whose  journey  lies  from  Versailles  to  Chevreuse,  will 
soon  find  himself  at  the  brow  of  a  steep  cleft  or  hollow,  in¬ 
tersecting  the  monotonous  plain  across  which  he  has  been 
passing.  The  brook  which  winds  through  the  verdant 
meadows  beneath  him,  stagnates  into  a  large  pool,  reflecting 

*  Reuchlin,  Geschichte  von  Fort-Royal.  Der  Kampf  des  Refor- 
mirten  und  des  Jesuistischen  Katholicismus.  1  ter  Band:  bis  zum 
Tode  Angelica  Arnauld.  (Reuchlin,  History  of  Port-Royal.  The 
Struggle  of  the  Reformed  and  the  Jesuitical  Catholicism.  1st  vol.: 
to  the  death  of  Angelique  Arnauld.)  8vo.  Leipsic,  1839. 


THE  TORT-ROYALISTS. 


249 


the  solitary  Gothic  arch,  the  water-mill,  and  the  dove-cot, 
which  rise  from  its  banks;  with  the  farm-house,  the  decayed 
towers,  the  forest-trees,  and  the  innumerable  shrubs  and 
creepers  which  clothe  the  slopes  of  the  valley.  France  has 
many  a  lovelier  prospect,  though  this  is  not  without  its 
beauty;  and  many  a  field  of  more  heart-stirring  interest, 
though  this,  too,  has  been  ennobled  by  heroic  daring;  but 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  that  land  of  chivalry  and 
of  song,  the  traveller  will  in  vain  seek  a  spot  so  sacred  to 
genius,  to  piety,  and  to  virtue.  That  arch  is  all  which  re¬ 
mains  of  the  once  crowded  monastery  of  Port-Royal.  In 
those  woods  Racine  first  learned  the  language — the  univer¬ 
sal  language — of  poetry.  Under  the  roof  of  that  humble 
farm-house,  Pascal,  Arnauld,  Nicole,  De  Saci,  and  Tille- 
mont,  meditated  those  works,  which,  as  long  as  civilization 
and  Christianity  survive,  will  retain  their  hold  on  the  gra¬ 
titude  and  reverence  of  mankind.  There  were  given  innu¬ 
merable  proofs  of  the  graceful  good  humour  of  Henry  the 
Fourth.  To  this  seclusion  retired  the  heroine  of  the  Fronde, 
Ann  Genevieve,  Duchess  of  Longueville,  to  seek  the  peace 
which  the  world  could  not  give.  Madame  de  Sevigne  dis¬ 
covered  here  a  place  “  tout  propre  a  inspirer  le  desir  de 
faire  son  salut.”  From  the  Petit  Trianon  and  Marly,  there 
came  hither  to  worship  God,  many  a  courtier  and  many  a 
beauty,  heart-broken  or  jaded  with  the  very  vanity  of  vani¬ 
ties — -the  idolatry  of  thoir  fellow  mortals.  Survey  French 
society  in  the  seventeenth  century  from  what  aspect  you 
will,  it  matters  not,  at  Port-Royal  will  be  found  the  most 
illustrious  examples  of  whatever  imparted  to  that  motley 
assemblage  any  real  dignity  or  permanent  regard.  Even 
to  the  mere  antiquarian,  it  was  not  without  a  lively  interest. 

At  the  eve  of  his  departure  to  the  conquest  of  the  holy 
Sepulchre,  the  good  knight,  Matthieu  de  Marli,  cast  a  wist¬ 
ful  gaze  over  the  broad  lands  of  his  ancestors,  and  intrusted 
to  his  spouse,  Mathilde  de  Garlande,  the  care  of  executing 
some  work  of  piety  by  which  to  propitiate  the  Divine  fa¬ 
vour,  and  to  ensure  his  safe  return.  A  Benedictine  monas¬ 
tery,  for  the  reception  of  twelve  ladies  of  the  Cistertian 
order,  was  accordingly  erected,  in  imitation  of  the  cathedral 
at  Amiens,  and  bv  the  same  architect.  Four  centuries  wit- 
nessed  the  gradual  increase  of  the  wealth  and  dignity  of  the 
foundation.  Prelates  of  the  houses  of  Sully  and  Nemours 
enlarged  its  privileges.  Pope  Honorius  III.  authorized  the 


250 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


celebration  of  the  sacred  office  within  its  walls,  even  though 
the  whole  country  should  be  lying  under  a  papal  interdict; 
and  of  the  host  consecrated  on  the  profession  of  a  nun,  seven 
fragments  might  be  solemnly  confided  to  her  own  keeping, 
that,  for  as  many  successive  days,  she  might  administer  to 
herself  the  holy  sacrament.  Yet  how  arrest  by  spiritual 
immunities  the  earthward  tendency  of  all  sublunary  things? 
At  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.,  the  religious  ladies 
of  Port-Royal  had  learned  to  adjust  their  “robes  a  grandes 
manches”  to  the  best  advantage.  Promenades  by  the  mar¬ 
gin  of  the  lake  relieved  the  tedium  of  monastic  life.  Gayer 
strains  of  music  than  those  of  the  choir,  might  be  heard  from 
the  adjacent  woods;  and  if  a  cavalier  from  Paris  or  Chev- 
reuse  had  chanced  to  pursue  his  game  that  way,  the  fair 
musicians  were  not  absolutely  concealed  nor  inexorably 
silent.  So  lightly  sat  the  burden  of  their  vows  on  those 
amiable  recluses,  that  the  gayest  courtier  might  well  covet 
for  his  portionless  daughter  the  rank  of  their  lady  abbess. 

Such  at  least  was  the  judgment  of  M.  Marion.  He  was 
advocate-general  to  Henry  IV.,  and  maternal  grandfather 
of  Jaqueline  Marie  Angeiique  and  of  Agnes  Arnauld.  Of 
the  arts  to  the  invention  of  which  the  moderns  may  lay 
claim,  that  of  jobbing  is  not  one.  M.  Marion  obtained 
from  “  the  father  of  his  people  ”  the  coadjutcrie  of  the  Ab¬ 
bey  of  Port-Royal  for  the  high-spirited  Jaqueline,  then  in 
her  eighth  year;  and  that  of  St.  Cyr  for  the  more  gentle 
Agnes,  over  whom  not  more  than  five  summers  had  passed. 
The  young  ladies  renounced  at  once  the  nursery  and  the 
world.  A  single  step  conducted  them  from  the  leading 
strings  to  the  veil.  Before  the  completion  of  her  first  de¬ 
cade,  Angeiique,  on  the  death  of  her  immediate  predecessor, 
found  herself,  in  plenary  right,  the  abbess  and  the  ruler  of 
her  monastery;  and,  in  attestation  of  her  spiritual  espousals, 
assumed  the  title  and  the  name  of  the  Mere  Angeiique,  by 
which  she  has  since  been  celebrated  in  the  annals  of  the 
church. 

To  the  church,  however,  must  not  be  imputed  this  breach 
of  ecclesiastical  discipline.  In  the  ardour  of  his  parental 
affections,  the  learned  advocate-general  was  hurried  into 
acts  for  which  he  would  have  consignee!  a  criminal  of  lower 
degree  to  the  galleys.  He  obtained  the  requisite  bulls  from 
Rome  by  forged  certificates  of  his  grand-daughter’s  age;  and 
to  this  treason  against  the  holy  see,  Henry  himself  was  at 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


251 


least  an  accessary  after  the  fact.  Hunting  in  the  valley 
of  Port-Royal,  the  gay  monarch  trespassed  on  the  precincts 
of  the  sacred  enclosure.  To  repel  the  royal  intruder,  a 
child,  bearing  in  her  hand  the  crosier,  which  bespoke  her 
high  conventual  rank,  issued  from  the  gates  of  the  abbey 
at  the  head  of  a  solemn  procession  of  nuns,  and  rebuked 
her  sovereign  with  all  the  majesty  of  an  infant  Ambrose. 
Henry  laughed  and  obeyed.  Marion’s  detected  fraud  would 
seem  to  have  passed  for  a  good  practical  joke,  and  for 
nothing  more.  In  the  result,  however,  no  occurrence  ever 
contributed  less  to  the  comedy  of  life,  or  formed  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  a  series  of  events  more  grave  or  touching. 
It  would  be  difficult  or  impossible  to  discover,  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  church,  the  name  of  any  woman  who  has  left  so 
deep  an  impress  of  her  character  on  the  thoughts  and  the 
conduct  of  the  Christian  commonwealth. 

The  family  of  Arnauld  held  a  conspicuous  station  among 
the  noblesse  of  Provence,  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen¬ 
turies.  In  a  later  age,  a  member  of  that  house  enjoyed  the 
singular  honour  of  at  once  serving  Catharine  de  Medicis  as 
her  procureur-general,  and  of  defeating,  sword  in  hand,  at 
the  head  of  his  servants,  the  force  sent  to  assassinate  him 
on  the  day  of  St.  Bartholomew.  Returning  to  the  bosom 
of  the  church,  which  had  thus  roughly  wooed  him,  he 
transmitted  his  fortune  and  his  office  to  his  son,  Antoine 
Arnauld,  the  husband  of  Catharine  Marion.  They  were 
the  happy  parents  of  no  less  than  twenty  children.  Of 
these  the  youngest  was  the  great  writer  who  has  imparted 
to  the  name  of  Arnauld  an  imperishable  lustre.  Five  of 
the  daughters  of  the  same  house  assumed  the  veil,  in  the 
abbey  of  Port-Royal.  Their  mother,  Catharine  Marion, 
was  admitted  in  her  widowhood  into  that  society.  Pom- 
ponne,  the  minister  of  Louis  XIV.;  Le  Maitre,  unrivalled 
among  the  masters  of  forensic  eloquence  in  France;  and 
De  Saci,  the  author  of  the  best  version  of  the  Holy  Scrip¬ 
tures  into  the  French  language,  were  three  of  her  grandsons. 
Before  her  death,  the  venerable  matron  had  seen  herself  sur¬ 
rounded,  in  the  monastery  and  the  adjoining  hermitages,  by 
eighteen  of  her  descendants  in  the  first  and  second  genera¬ 
tions;  nor  until  the  final  dispersion  of  the  sisterhood,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  had  the  posterity  of 
Antoine  and  Catharine  Arnauld  ceased  to  rule  in  the  house 
of  which  the  Mere  Angelique  had,  seventy  years  before, 
been  the  renowned  reformer. 


252 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


To  those  who  believe  that  the  psychological  distinction 
of  the  sexes  may  be  traced  to  physical  causes,  and  that, 
where  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  those 
distinctions  will  for  ever  disappear,  the  character  of  Ange- 
lique  is  less  perplexing  than  to  the  advocates  of  the  oppo¬ 
site  theory.  Her  understanding,  her  spirit,  and  her  re¬ 
solves,  were  all  essentially  masculine.  She  was  endued 
with  the  various  faculties  by  which  man  either  extorts  or 
wins  dominion  over  his  fellow-men; — with  address,  cou¬ 
rage,  fortitude,  self-reliance,  and  an  unfaltering  gaze  fixed 
on  objects  at  once  too  vast  to  be  measured  and  remote  to 
be  discerned  but  by  the  all-searching  eye  of  faith.  Among 
the  Israelites  of  old,  she  would  have  assumed  the  office  of 
Judge;  or  would  have  given  out  oracles  in  the  forests  of 
ancient  Germany. 

Born  in  the  reign,  and  educated  near  the  court  of  a 
Bourbon,  the  lighter  and  more  gentle  elements  of  her  nature 
found  exercise  even  under  the  paralyzing  influences  of  an 
ascetic  life;  for  Angelique  was  gay  and  light  of  heart,  and 
St.  Benedict  himself  might  have  forgiven  or  applauded  the 
playful  sallies  of  his  votary.  In  scaling  the  heights  of 
devotion,  she  could  call  to  her  own  aid,  and  that  of  others, 
all  the  resources  of  the  most  plaintive  or  impassioned  mu¬ 
sic.  To  flowers,  and  to  the  glad  face  of  nature,  she  gave 
back  their  own  smiles  with  a  true  woman’s  sympathy. 
With  such  literature  as  might  be  cultivated  within  the  walls 
of  her  convent,  she  was  intimately  conversant;  and  would 
have  eclipsed  Madame  de  Sevigne’s  epistolary  fame,  had  it 
been  permitted  to  her  to  escape  from  theological  into  popu¬ 
lar  topics.  Concentrated  within  a  domestic  circle,  and 
bestowed  on  a  husband  or  a  child,  the  affections,  which 
she  poured  out  on  every  human  being  who  claimed  her 
pity,  would  have  burned  with  a  flame  as  pure  and  as  intense 
as  was  ever  hymned  in  poetry  or  dreamt  of  in  romance. 
A  traveller  on  the  highways  of  the  world,  she  must  have 
incurred  every  peril  except  that  of  treading  an  obscure  and 
inglorious  path.  Immured  by  superstition  in  a  cloister, 
she  opened  the  way  at  once  to  sublunary  fame  and  to  an 
immortal  recompense;  and  has  left  an  example  as  danger¬ 
ous  as  it  may  be  seductive  to  feebler  minds,  who,  in  a 
desperate  imitation  of  such  a  model,  should  hazard  a  simi¬ 
lar  self-devotion. 

Angelique,  indeed,  might  be  fitted  for  a  nunnery;  for  such 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


253 


was  the  strength,  and  such  the  sacred  harmony  of  her 
spirit,  that  while  still  a  sojourner  on  earth,  she  seemed 
already  a  denizen  of  heaven.  When  a  child,  she  under¬ 
stood  as  a  child ;  enjoying  the  sports,  the  rambles,  and  the 
social  delights  which  the  habits  of  Port-Royal  had  not  then 
forbidden.  With  advancing  years  came  deeper  and  more 
melancholy  thoughts.  She  felt,  indeed,  (how  could  she 
but  feel?)  the  yearnings  of  a  young  heart  for  a  world  where 
love  and  homage  awaited  her.  But  those  mysteries  of  our 
being,  of  which  the  most  frivolous  are  not  altogether  un¬ 
conscious,  pressed  with  unwonted  weight  on  her.  A  spouse 
of  Christ;  a  spiritual  mother  of  those  who  sustained  the 
same  awful  character — her  orisons,  her  matins,  and  her 
vesper  chants,  accompanied  by  unearthly  music  and  by 
forms  of  solemn  significance;  the  Gothic  pile  beneath 
which  she  sat  enthroned ;  and  the  altar  where,  as  she  was 
taught,  the  visible  presence  of  her  Redeemer  was  daily 
manifested — all  spoke  to  her  of  a  high  destiny,  a  fearful 
responsibility,  and  of  objects  for  which  all  sublunary  ties 
might  well  be  severed,  and  a  sacrifice  wisely  made  of 
every  selfish  feeling.  Nor  need  a  Protestant  fear  to  ac¬ 
knowledge,  that  on  a  heart  thus  consecrated  to  the  service 
of  her  Maker,  rested  the  holy  influence,  familiar  to  all  who 
meekly  adore  the  great  source  of  wisdom,  and  reverently 
acquiesce  in  his  will.  As  a  science,  religion  consists  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  relations  between  God  and  man;  as  a 
principle,  in  the  exercise  of  the  corresponding  affections ; 
as  a  rule  of  duty,  in  the  performance  of  the  actions  which 
those  affections  prescribe.  The  principle  may  thrive  in 
healthful  life  and  energy,  though  the  science  be  ill  under¬ 
stood  and  the  rule  imperfectly  apprehended.  For,  after 
all,  the  gretit  command  is  Love;  and  He  from  whom  that 
command  proceeded,  is  himself  Love;  and  amidst  all  the 
absurdities  (for  such  they  were)  of  her  monastic  life,  An- 
gelique  was  still  conscious  of  the  presence  of  a  Father,  and 
found  the  guidance  of  a  friend. 

When  at  the  age  of  eleven  years,  Angelique  became  the 
abbess  of  Port-Royal,  few  things  were  less  thought  of  by 
the  French  ladies  of  the  Cistertian  order  than  the  rule  of 
their  austere  founder.  During  the  wars  of  the  League, 
religion,  by  becoming  a  watchword,  had  almost  ceased  to 
be  a  reality;  civil  war,  the  apology  for  every  crime,  had 
debased  the  national  character;  and  the  profligacy  of  man- 
22 


254 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

« 


ners  which  the  last  generation  expiated  by  their  sufferings, 
may  be  distinctly  paid  back  to  the  age  of  which  Davila  has 
written  the  political,  and  Bassompierre  the  social  history. 
Society  will  still  exert  a  powerful  influence  even  over 
those  by  whom  it  has  been  abandoned.  When  Gabrielle 
d’Etrees  reigned  at  the  Louvre,  beads  were  told  and  masses 
sung  in  neighbouring  cloisters,  by  vestals  who,  in  heathen 
Rome,  would  have  been  consigned  to  a  living  sepulchre. 
In  a  monastery,  the  spiritual  thermometer  ranges  from  the 
boiling  to  the  freezing  point  with  but  few  intermediate 
pauses.  From  the  ecstasies  of  devotion  there  is  but  one 
step  to  disgust,  and  thence  to  sensuality,  for  most  of  those 
who  dare  to  forego  the  aids  to  piety  and  virtue  which  di¬ 
vine  wisdom  has  provided  in  the  duties^  and  the  affections 
of  domestic  life. 

While  this  downward  progress  was  advancing  at  Port- 
Royal,  it  happened  that  a  Capuchin  friar  sought  and  ob¬ 
tained  permission  to  preach  there.  Of  the  man  himself,  the 
chroniclers  of  the  house  have  left  a  scandalous  report;  but 
they  gratefully  acknowledge  the  efficacy  of  his  sermon. 
Angelique  listened,  and  was  converted.  Such,  at  least,  is 
her  own  statement;  and  unstirred  be  all  the  theological 
questions  connected  with  it.  How  deep  was  the  impres¬ 
sion  on  her  mind,  may  be  gathered  from  her  own  words: — 
“Often,”  she  exclaims,  “did  I  wish  to  fly  a  hundred 
leagues  from  the  spot,  and  never  more  to  see  my  father, 
mother,  or  kindred,  dearly  as  I  love  them.  My  desire  was 
to  live  apart  from  every  one  but  God,  unknown  to  any 
human  being,  concealed  and  humble,  with  no  witness  but 
himself,  with  no  desire  but  to  please  him.”  Her  dignity 
as  abbess  she  now  regarded  as  a  burden.  Even  her  pro¬ 
jected  reforms  had  lost  their  interest.  To  live  where  her 
holy  aspirations  would  be  thwarted,  and  where  examples 
of  holiness  would  not  be  found,  was  to  soar  to  a  more 
arduous,  and  therefore  a  more  attractive  sphere  of  self- 
denial. 

That  such  fascinations  should  dazzle  a  young  lady  in  her 
seventeenth  year,  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  no  very  memo¬ 
rable  prodigy;  but  to  cherish  no  ineffectual  emotions  was 
one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  Mere  Angelique,  as  it  is, 
indeed,  of  all  powerful  minds.  To  abdicate  her  ecclesias¬ 
tical  rank,  and  by  breathing  a  tainted  moral  atmosphere, 
to  nourish  by  the  force  of  contrast  the  loftier  Christian 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


255 


graces,  were  purposes  ultimately  executed,  though  for 
awhile  postponed.  She  paused  only  till  the  sisterhood  of 
Port  Royal  should  have  acquired,  from  her  example  or 
teaching,  that  sanctity  of  manners  in  which  her  creed  in¬ 
formed  her  that  the  perfection  of  our  nature  consists.  To 
the  elder  ladies,  the  prospect  had  few  charms.  But  the 
will  of  their  young  abbess  prevailed.  They  laid  at  her 
leet  their  separate  possessions,  abandoned  every  secular 
amusement,  and,  closing  the  gates  of  their  monastery 
against  all  strangers,  retired  to  that  uninterrupted  discharge 
of  their  spiritual  exercises  to  which  their  vows  had  con¬ 
signed  them.  Much  may  be  read,  in  the  conventual  an¬ 
nals,  of  the  contest  with  her  family  to  which  the  Mere 
Angelique  was  exposed  by  the  last  of  these  resolutions. 
On  a  day,  subsequently  held  in  high  esteem  as  the  “Jour- 
nee  du  Guichet,”  her  parents  and  M.  D’Andilly,  her  eldest 
brother,  were  publicly  excluded,  by  her  mandate,  from  the 
hallowed  precincts,  despite  their  reproaches  and  their 
prayers,  and  the  filial  agonies  of  her  own  heart.  That 
great  sacrifice  accomplished,  the  rest  was  easy.  Poverty 
resumed  his  stern  dominion.  Linen  gave  place  to  the 
coarsest  woollens.  Fasting  and  vigils  subdued  the  lower 
appetites ;  and  Port  Royal  was  once  more  a  temple  whence 
the  sacrifices  of  devotion  rose  with  an  unextinguished 
flame  to  heaven,  thence,  as  it  was  piously  believed,  to  draw 
down  an  unbroken  stream  of  blessings  to  earth. 

Far  different  were  the  strains  that  arose  from  the  neigh¬ 
bouring  abbey  of  Maubisson,  under  the  rule  of  Mde. 
d’Etrees.  That  splendid  mansion,  with  its  dependent 
baronies  and  forests,  resembled  far  more  the  palace  and 
gardens  of  Armida,  than  a  retreat  sacred  to  penitence  and 
prayer.  She  was  the  sister  of  the  too  famous  Gabrielle,  to 
whose  influence  with  Henry  she  was  indebted  for  this  rich 
preferment.  Indulging  without  restraint,  not  merely  in  the 
luxuries  but  in  the  debaucheries  of  the  neighbouring  capital, 
she  had  provoked  the  anger  of  the  king,  and  the  alarm  of 
the  general  of  the  order.  A  visitation  of  the  house  was 
directed.  Madame  d’Etrees,  imprisoned  the  visiters,  and 
well-nigh  starved  them.  A  second  body  of  delegates  pre¬ 
sented  themselves.  Penances,  at  least  when  involuntary, 
were  not  disused  at  Maubisson.  The  new  commissioners 
were  locked  up  in  a  dungeon,  regaled  with  bread  and  water, 
and  soundly  whipped  every  morning.  Supported  by  a 


256 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


guard,  the  general  himself  then  hazarded  an  encounter  with 
the  formidable  termagant.  He  returned  with  a  whole  skin, 
but  boasted  no  other  advantage.  Next  appeared  at  the 
abbey  gates  a  band  of  archers.  After  two  days  of  fruitless 
expostulation,  they  broke  into  the  enclosure.  Madame 
now  changed  her  tactics.  She  took  up  a  defensive  posi¬ 
tion,  till  then  unheard  of  in  the  science  of  strategy.  In 
plain  terms,  she  went  to  bed.  A  more  embarrassing 
manmuvre  was  never  executed  by  Turenne  or  Conde. 
The  siege  was  turned  into  a  blockade.  Hour  after  hour 
elapsed;  night  succeeded  to  day,  and  day  to  night;  but  still 
the  abbess  was  recumbent — unapparelled,  unapproachable. 
Driven  thus  to  choose  between  a  ludicrous  defeat  and  a 
sore  scandal,  what  Frenchman  could  longer  hesitate?  Bed, 
blankets,  abbess  and  all,  were  raised  on  the  profane  shoul¬ 
ders  of  the  archers,  lifted  into  a  carriage,  and  most  appro¬ 
priately  turned  over  to  the  keeping  of  the  Filles  Penitentes 
at  Paris. 

And  now  was  to  be  gratified  the  lofty  wish  of  Angelique 
to  tread  in  paths  where,  unsustained  by  any  human  sym¬ 
pathy,  she  might  cast  herself  with  an  undivided  reliance  on 
the  Arm  which  she  knew  could  never  fail  her.  From  the 
solemn  repose  of  Port-Royal,  she  was  called,  by  the  gene¬ 
ral  of  the  order,  to  assume  the  government  of  the  ladies  of 
Maubisson.  Thetis  passing  from  the  ocean  caves  to  the 
Grecian  camp,  did  not  make  a  more  abrupt  transition.  At 
Maubisson,  the  compromise  between  religious  duties  and 
earthly  pleasures  was  placed  on  the  most  singular  footing. 
Monks  and  nuns  sauntered  together  through  the  gardens  of 
the  monastery,  or  angled  in  the  lakes  which  watered  them. 
Fetes  were  celebrated  in  the  arbours  with  every  pledge  ex¬ 
cept  that  of  temperance.  Benedictine  cowls  and  draperies 
were  blended  in  the  dance  with  the  military  uniform  and 
the  stiff  brocades  of  their  secular  guests;  and  the  evening 
closed  with  cards  and  dice  and  amateur  theatricals,  until 
the  curtain  fell  on  scenes  than  which  none  could  more  re¬ 
quire  that  friendly  shelter.  Toil  and  care  might  seem  to 
have  fled  the  place,  or  rather  to  have  been  reserved  exclu¬ 
sively  for  the  confessor.  Even  for  him  relief  was  pro¬ 
vided.  Considerately  weighing  the  extent  of  the  labours 
they  habitually  imposed  on  him,  his  fair  penitents  drew  up 
for  their  common  use  certain  written  forms  of  self-arraign¬ 
ment,  to  which  he,  with  equal  tenderness,  responded  by 
other  established  forms  of  conditional  absolution. 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.. 


257 


But  the  lady  entered,  and  Comus  and  his  crew  fled  the 
hallowed  ground  which  they  had  thus  been  permitted  to 
defile.  She  entered  with  all  the  majesty  of  faith,  tempered 
by  a  meek  compassion  for  the  guilt  she  abhorred,  and  strong 
in  that  virgin  purity  of  heart  which  can  endure  unharmed 
the  contact  even  of  pollution.  “  Our  health  and  our  lives 
may  be  sacrificed,”  she  said  to  her  associates  in  this  work 
of  mercy;  “but  the  work  is  the  work  of  God:”  and  in  the 
strength  of  God  she  performed  it.  Seclusion  from  the 
world  was  again  established  within  the  refectory  and  the 
domain  of  Maubisson.  Novices  possessing  a  “genuine 
vocation”  were  admitted.  Angelique  directed  at  once  the 
secular  and  the  spiritual  affairs  of  the  convent.  All  the 
details  of  a  feudal  principality,  the  education  of  the  young, 
the  care  of  the  sick,  the  soothing  of  the  penitents,  the 
management  of  the  perverse,  the  conduct  of  the  sacred 
offices,  alternately  engaged  her  time;  and  in  each  she  ex¬ 
hibited  a  gentleness,  a  gaiety,  and  a  firmness  of  mind,  before 
which  all  resistance  gave  way.  The  associates  of  Madame 
d’Etrees  retained  their  love  of  good  cheer,  and  Angelique 
caused  their  table  to  be  elegantly  served.  They  sang  de¬ 
plorably  out  of  tune,  and  the  young  abbess  silently  endured 
the  discord  which  racked  her  ear.  To  their  murmurs  she 
answered  in  her  kindest  accents.  Their  indolence  she  re¬ 
buked  only  by  performing  the  most  menial  offices  in  their 
service;  and  inculcated  self-denial  by  assigning  to  herself  a 
dormitory,  which,  to  say  the  truth,  would  have  much  better 
suited  the  house-dog.  The  record  of  the  strange  and  even 
sordid  self-humiliations  to  which  she  thought  it  right  to 
bow,  can  hardly  be  read  without  a  smile;  but,  whatever 
may  have  been  the  errors  of  her  creed,  a  more  touching 
picture  has  never  been  drawn  of  the  triumphs  of  love  and 
of  wisdom,  than  in  the  record  left  by  Madame  Suireau  des 
Anges  of  this  passage  of  the  life  of  Angelique  Arnauld. 

But  Madame  d’Etrees  was  not  yet  at  the  end  of  her  re¬ 
sources.  A  company  of  young  men,  under  the  guidance 
of  her  brother-in-law  Count  de  Sauze  were  observed  one 
evening  to  loiter  near  the  house  of  the  Filles  Penitentes. 
By  the  next  morning  she  was  under  their  escort  at  the 
gates  of  Maubisson.  Burst  open  by  main  force,  they  again 
admitted  the  ejected  abbess.  The  servant  who  opposed 
her  entrance  was  chastised  on  the  spot.  Patients  who  now 
occupied  as  an  hospital  the  once  sumptuous  chambers  of 

22* 


258 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


the  Abbatial  lodge,  instantly  found  themselves  in  much 
more  humble  lodgings.  Cooks  resumed  their  long  neg¬ 
lected  art,  and  Madame  d’Etrees  provided  a  dinner  worthy 
of  her  former  hospitality  and  her  recent  privations.  But 
in  the  presence  of  Angelique,  the  virago  was  abashed.  To 
intimidate  or  to  provoke  her  rival  proved  alike  impossible: 
it  might  be  more  easy  to  overpower  her.  De  Sauze  and 
his  confederates  made  the  attempt.  They  discharged  their 
pistols  and  flourished  their  drawn  swords  over  her  head, 
with  unmanly  menaces.  She  remained  unmoved  and  si¬ 
lent.  The  screams  which  the  occasion  demanded,  were 
accordingly  supplied  by  the  intrusive  abbess.  Clamour  and 
outrage  were  alike  ineffectual.  At  length  Madame  d’Etrees 
and  her  respectable  confessor,  aided  by  De  Sauze,  laid  their 
hands  on  Angelique,  and  thrust  her  from  the  precincts  of 
the  monastery.  Thirty  of  the  nuns  followed  her  in  solemn 
procession.  Their  veils  let  down,  their  eyes  cast  on  the 
earth,  and  their  hands  clasped  in  prayer,  they  slowly 
moved  to  a  place  of  refuge  in  the  neighbouring  town  of 
Pontoise! 

But  alas,  for  the  vanity  of  human  triumphs!-— waving 
banners,  and  burnished  arms  glitter  through  the  advancing 
column  of  dust  on  the  road  from  Paris  to  Maubisson. 
Scouts  announce  the  approach  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
well-appointed  archers ;  Madame  d’Etrees  and  her  cava¬ 
liers  escape  by  the  postern.  A  desperate  leap  saves  the 
worthless  life  of  her  confessor.  Her  partisan,  the  Mere 
de  la  Sure,  “a nun  by  profession,  but  otherwise  resembling 
a  trooper,”  mounts  through  a  trap-door  to  a  hiding-place  in 
the  ceiling,  thence  to  be  shamefully  dragged  by  an  archer 
whom  she  still  more  shamefully  abused.  Then  might  be 
seen  through  the  gloom  of  night,  a  train  of  priests  and  nuns 
drawing  near  with  measured  steps  to  the  venerable  abbey; 
on  either  side  a  double  file  of  cavalry,  and  in  each  horse¬ 
man’s  hand  a  torch,  illuminating  the  path  of  the  returning 
exiles.  Angelique  resumed  her  benignant  reign;  but  not  in 
peace.  Brigands  led  by  De  Sauze,  and  encouraged  by  her 
rival,  haunted  the  neighbouring  forests;  and  though  pro¬ 
tected  by  the  archers,  the  monastery  remained  in  a  state 
of  siege.  Shots  were  fired  through  the  windows,  and  the 
life  of  Angelique  was  endangered.  Strong  in  the  assurance 
of  Divine  protection,  she  demanded  and  obtained  the  re¬ 
moval  of  the  guard.  Her  confidence  was  justified  by  the 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


259 


event.  Madame  d’Etrees  was  discovered,  was  restored  to 
tier  old  quarters  at  the  Filles  Penitentes ,  and  in  due  time 
transferred — not  without  good  cause — to  the  Chatelet;  there 
to  close  in  squalid  misery,  in  quarrels,  and  intemperance, 
a  career  which  might,  with  almost  equal  propriety,  form 
the  subject  of  a  drama,  a  homily,  or  a  satire. 

For  five  successive  years  Angelique  laboured  to  bring 
back  the  ladies  of  Maubisson  to  the  exact  observance  of 
their  sacred  vows.  Aided  by  her  sister  Agnes,  the  abbess 
of  St.  Cyr,  she  established  a  similar  reform  in  a  large  pro¬ 
portion  of  the  other  Cistertian  nunneries  of  France.  All 
obstacles  yielded  to  their  love,  their  prudence,  and  their 
self-devotion.  A  moral  plague  was  stayed,  and  excesses 
which  even  the  sensual  and  the  worldly  condemned,  were 
banished  from  the  sanctuaries  of  religion.  That  in  some,  the 
change  was  but  from  shameless  riot  to  hypocritical  conform¬ 
ity;  that  in  others,  intemperance  merely  gave  way  to  men¬ 
tal  lethargy;  and  that  even  the  most  exalted  virtues  of  the 
cloister  held  but  a  subordinate  and  an  equivocal  place  in  the 
scale  of  Christian  graces,  is  indeed  but  too  true:  yet  assu¬ 
redly,  it  was  in  no  such  critical  spirit  as  this,  that  the  la¬ 
bours  of  Angelique  were  judged  and  accepted  by  Him,  in 
the  lowly  imitation  of  whom  she  had  thus  gone  about  doing 
good.  “She  has  done  what  she  could,”  was  the  apology 
with  which  he  rescued  from  a  like  cold  censure  the  love 
which  had  expressed  itself  in  a  costly  and  painful  sacrifice; 
nor  was  the  gracious  benediction  which  rewarded  the  wo¬ 
man  of  Bethany  withheld  from  the  abbess  of  Port  Royal. 
To  that  tranquil  home  she  bent  her  steps,  there  to  encounter 
far  heavier  trials  than  any  to  which  the  resentment  of 
Madame  d’Etrees  had  exposed  her. 

Accompanied  by  a  large  number  of  the  nuns  of  Mau¬ 
bisson,  Angelique  returned  to  the  valley  of  Chevreuse. 
They  brought  with  them  neither  silver  nor  gold,  though 
rich  in  treasures  of  a  far  higher  price  in  the  account  of  their 
devout  protectress.  Poverty,  disease,  and  death,  were  how¬ 
ever  in  their  train.  Rising  from  the  marshes  below,  a 
humid  fog  hung  continually  on  the  slopes  of  the  adjacent 
hills,  and  the  now  crowded  monastery  was  soon  converted 
into  one  great  hospital.  But  for  a  timely  transfer  of  the 
whole  establishment  to  a  hotel  purchased  for  them  by  the 
mother  of  Angelique  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Jaques  at  Paris, 
their  remaining  history  might  all  have  been  compressed 
into  a  chapter  on  the  influence  of  malaria . 


260 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


The  restoration  of  the  community  to  health  was  not, 
however,  the  most  momentous  consequence  of  the  change. 
It  introduced  the  abbess  to  the  society  and  the  influence  of 
Hauranne  de  Verger,  the  abbot  of  St,  Cyran,  one  of  the 
most  memorable  names  in  the  ecclesiastical  annals  of  that 
age.  When  Richelieu  was  yet  a  simple  bishop,  he  distin¬ 
guished  among  the  crowd  of  his  companions  one  whose 
graceful  bearing,  open  countenance,  learning,  gaiety,  and 
wit,  revealed  to  his  penetrating  glance  the  germs  of  future 
eminence.  But  to  an  eye  dazzled  by  such  prospects  as 
were  already  dawning  on  the  ambitious  statesman,  those 
which  had  arrested  the  upward  gaze  of  his  young  asso¬ 
ciate  were  altogether  inscrutable.  With  what  possible 
motive  De  Verger  should  for  whole  days  bury  himself  in 
solitude,  and  chain  down  that  buoyant  spirit  to  the  study 
of  the  Greek  and  Latin  fathers  was  one  of  the  few  problems 
which  ever  engaged  and  baffled  the  sagacity  of  M.  de  Lucon. 
They  parted;  the  prelate  to  his  craft,  the  student  to  his 
books;  the  one  to  extort  the  reluctant  admiration  of  the 
world,  the  other  to  toil  and  to  suffer  in  the  cause  of  piety 
and  truth.  They  met  again;  the  cardinal  to  persecute,  and 
the  abbot  to  be  his  victim.  Death  called  them  both  to 
their  account;  leaving  to  them  in  the  world  they  had  agitated 
or  improved,  nothing  but  historical  names,  as  forcibly  con¬ 
trasted  as  they  had  been  strangely  associated. 

Great  men  (and  to  few  could  that  title  be  more  justly 
given  than  to  Richelieu)  differ  from  other  men  chiefly  in 
the  power  of  self-multiplication;  in  knowing  how  to  make 
other  men  adopt  their  views  and  execute  their  purposes. 
Thus  to  subjugate  the  genius  of  St.  Cyran,  the  great  minis¬ 
ter  had  spared  neither  caresses  nor  bribes.  The  place 
of  first  almoner  to  Henrietta  of  England,  the  bishoprics  of 
Clermont  and  Bayonne,  a  choice  among  numerous  abbacies, 
were  successively  offered  and  refused.  “Gentlemen,  I 
introduce  to  you  the  most  learned  man  in  Europe,”  was 
the  courteous  phrase  by  which  the  Cardinal  made  known 
the  friend  of  his  youth  to  the  courtiers  who  thronged  his 
levee.  But  human  applause  had  lost  its  charm  for  the  ear 
of  St,  Cyran.  The  retired  and  studious  habits  of  his  early 
days  had  not  appeared  more  inexplicable  to  the  worldly- 
minded  statesman  than  his  present  indifference.  Self- 
knowledge  had  made  Richelieu  uncharitable.  Incredulous 
of  virtues  of  which  he  detected  no  type  in  the  dark  recesses 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


261 


of  his  own  bosom,  he  saw,  in  his  former  companion,  a 
treacherous  enemy,  if  not  a  rival.  There  were  secrets  of 
his  early  life  of  which  he  seems  to  have  expected  and 
feared  the  disclosure.  St.  Cyran  was  at  least  the  silent, 
and  might  become  the  open  enemy  of  the  declaration  by 
which  the  parliament  and  clergy  of  Paris  had  annulled  the 
marriage  of  Gaston  Duke  of  Orleans,  to  pave  the  way  for 
his  union  with  the  niece  of  the  cardinal.  To  his  long- 
cherished  scheme  of  erecting  the  kingdom  of  France  into 
a  Patriarchate  in  his  own  favour,  there  could  arise  no  more 
probable  or  more  dangerous  opponent.  To  these  imagi¬ 
nary  or  anticipated  wrongs,  was  added  another,  which 
seems  to  have  excited  still  more  implacable  resentment. 
An  aspirant  after  every  form  of  glory,  Richelieu  had  con¬ 
vinced  himself,  and  required  others  to  believe,  that  his 
literary  and  theological  were  on  a  level  with  his  political 
powers.  He  was  the  author  of  a  Catechism  where  might 
be  read  the  dogma,  that  contrition  alone,  uncombined  in 
the  heart  of  the  penitent  with  any  emotions  of  love  towards 
the  Deity,  was  sufficient  to  justify  an  absolution  at  the 
Confessional.  One  Seguenot,  a  priest  of  the  Oratory, 
maintained  and  published  the  opposite  opinion.  Rumour 
denied  to  Seguenot  the  real  parentage  of  the  book  which 
bore  his  name,  and  ascribed  it  to  St.  Cyran.  From  specu¬ 
lations  on  the  love  of  God  to  feelings  of  hatred  to  man, 
what  polemic  will  not  readily  pass,  whether  his  cap  be  red 
or  black  ?  Seguenot’s  errors  were  denounced  by  the  Sor- 
bonne,  and  the  poor  man  himself  was  sent  to  the  Bastille, 
.here,  during  the  rest  of  his  great  opponent’s  life,  to  obtain 
clearer  views  on  the  subject  of  contrition.  Impartial  jus¬ 
tice  required  that  the  real,  or  imputed,  should  fare  no  better 
than  the  nominal  author;  and  St.  Cyran  was  conducted  to 
Vincennes,  to  breathe  no  more  the  free  air  of  heaven  till 
Richelieu  himself  should  be  laid  in  the  grave. 

Never  had  that  gloomy  fortress  received  within  its  walls 
a  man  better  fitted  to  endure  with  composure  the  utmost 
reverses  of  fortune.  To  him,  as  their  patriarch  or  founder, 
the  whole  body  of  the  Port  Royalists,  with  one  voice,  at¬ 
tribute  not  merely  a  pre-eminence  above  all  other  teachers, 
but  such  a  combination  of  intellectual  powers  and  Christian 
graces,  as  would  entitle  him  not  so  much  to  a  place  in  the 
calendar,  as  to  a  place  apart  from,  and  above,  the  other 
luminaries  in  that  spiritual  galaxy.  Make  every  deduction 


262 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


from  their  eulogies  which  a  rational  skepticism  may  sug¬ 
gest,  and  it  will  yet  be  impossible  to  evade  the  accumulated 
proofs  on  which  they  claim  for  St.  Cyran  the  reverence  of 
mankind.  Towards  the  close  of  the  first  of  the  four  vo¬ 
lumes  which  he  has  dedicated  to  the  attempt,  Claude 
Lancelot  confesses  and  laments  the  difficulty  of  conveying 
to  others  by  words  any  definite  image  of  the  sublime  and 
simple  reality  which  he  daily  contemplated  with  more  than 
filial  reverence.  He  describes  a  man  moving  through  the 
whole  circle  of  the  virtues  which  the  Gospel  inculcates, 
with  a  step  so  firm  as  to  indicate  the  constant  aid  of  a  more 
than  human  power,  and  with  a  demeanour  so  lowly  as  to 
bespeak  an  habitual  consciousness  of  that  divine  presence. 
He  depicts  a  moral  hero,  by  whom  every  appetite  had  been 
subdued,  and  every  passion  tranquillized,  though  still  ex¬ 
quisitely  alive  to  the  pains  and  the  enjoyments  of  life,  and 
responding  with  almost  feminine  tenderness  to  every  affec¬ 
tionate  and  kindly  feeling — a  master  of  all  erudition,  but 
never  so  happy  as  when  imparting  to  little  children  the 
elementary  truths  on  which  his  own  heart  reposed — grave, 
nay,  solemn  in  discourse,  but  with  tones  so  gentle,  a  wis¬ 
dom  so  profound,  and  words  of  such  strange  authority  to 
animate  and  to  soothe  the  listener,  that,  in  comparison  with 
his,  all  other  colloquial  eloquence  was  wearisome  and 
vapid — rebuking  vice  far  less  by  stern  reproof  than  by  the 
contrast  of  his  own  serene  aspect,  at  onee  the  result  and 
the  reflection  of  the  perfect  peace  in  which  his  mind  con¬ 
tinually  dwelt, — exhibiting  a  transcript,  however  rudely 
and  imperfectly,  yet  faithfully  drawn,  of  the  great  example 
to  which  his  eye  was  ever  turned,  and  where,  averting  his 
regard  from  ail  inferior  models,  it  was  his  wont  to  study, 
to  imitate,  and  to  adore.  In  short,  the  St.  Cyran  of 
Lancelot’s  portraiture  is  one  of  tuose  rare  mortals  whose 
mental  health  is  absolute  and  unimpaired — whose  character 
consists  not  so  much  in  the  excellence  of  particular  quali¬ 
ties,  as  in  the  symmetry,  the  balance,  and  the  well-adjusted 
harmonies  of  all — who  concentrate  their  energies  in  one 
mighty  object,  because  they  live  under  the  habitual  influ¬ 
ence  of  one  supreme  motive — -who  are  ceaselessly  animated 
by  a  love  embracing  every  rational  being,  from  Him  who 
is  the  common  parent  of  the  rest,  to  the  meanest  and  the 
vilest  of  those  who  were  originally  created  in  his  image 
and  likeness. 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


203 


Nor  was  Lancelot  a  man  inapt  to  discriminate.  He  was 
the  author  of  the  Port-Royal  Grammars,  Greek,  Latin,  anti 
the  Italian,  now  fallen  into  disuse,  but  so  well  known  to 
such  of  us  as  ploughed  those  rugged  soils  during  the  first 
ten  years  of  the  present  century.  His  biographical  labours 
are  not  without  a  tinge  of  his  style  as  a  grammarian; — a 
little  tedious  perhaps,  and  not  a  little  prolix  and  over-me¬ 
thodical,  but  replete  in  almost  every  page  with  such  touches 
of  genuine  dignity  in  the  master,  and  cordial  reverence  in 
the  disciple — with  a  sympathy  so  earnest  for  the  virtues  he 
celebrates,  and  so  simple-hearted  a  consciousness  of  his 
own  inferiority — that,  in  the  picture  he  undesignedly  draws 
of  himself,  he  succeeds  more  than  in  any  other  way  in 
raising  a  lofty  conception  of  the  man  by  whom  he  was  held 
in  such  willing  and  grateful  subjugation.  And  he  had  many 
fellow-subjects,  Richelieu  himself  had  felt  his  daring  spirit 
awed  by  the  union,  in  the  friend  of  his  youth,  of  a  majestic 
repose  and  unwearied  activity,  which  compelled  the  great 
minister  to  admit  that  the  heart  of  man  might  envelop 
mysteries  beyond  his  divination.  Pascal,  Nicole,  Arnauld, 
and  many  others,  eminent  in  that  age  for  genius  and  piety, 
submitted  themselves  to  his  guidance  in  their  studies  as 
well  as  in  their  lives,  with  the  implicit  deference  of  children 
awaiting  the  commands  of  a  revered  and  affectionate  father. 
He  was  the  most  voluminous  writer;  but  of  his  published 
works  one  only  attained  a  transient  celebrity,  and  of  that 
book  his  authorship  was  more  than  doubtful.  If  he  did 
not  disown,  he  never  claimed  it.  Of  the  innumerable  inci¬ 
dents  recorded  of  him  during  his  imprisonment  at  Vincennes, 
few  are  more  characteristic  than  the  sale  of  a  considerable 
part  of  a  scanty  collection  of  books  he  had  brought  there, 
to  purchase  clothes  for  two  of  his  fellow-prisoners,  the 
Baron  and  Baroness  de  Beau  Soleil.  “I  entreat  you,” 
he  says  to  the  lady  to  whom  he  gave  this  commission, 
“that  the  cloth  may  be  fine  and  good,  and  befitting  their 
station  in  society.  I  do  not  know  what  is  becoming;  but, 
if  I  remember,  some  one  has  told  me  that  gentlemen  and 
ladies  of  their  condition  ought  not  to  be  seen  in  company 
without  gold  lace  for  the  men  and  black  lace  for  the  wo¬ 
men.  If  I  am  right  about  this,  pray  purchase  the  best,  and 
let  every  thing  be  done  modestly,  yet  handsomely,  that 
when  they  see  each  other,  they  may,  for  a  few  minutes  at 
least,  forget  that  they  are  captives.”  It  is  in  the  moral, 


264 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


rather  than  in  the  intellectual  qualities  of  St.  Cyran,  that 
his  claim  to  the  veneration  of  posterity  must  now  be  rested. 
He  occupies  a  place  in  ecclesiastical  history  as  the  founder 
of  Jansenism  in  France. 

Of  that  system  of  religious  belief  and  practice,  the  origin 
is  to  be  traced  to  the  joint  labours  of  St.  Cyran  and  Corne¬ 
lius  Jansen,  during  the  six  years  which  they  passed  in  so¬ 
cial  study  at  Bayonne.  Returning  to  his  native  country, 
Jansen  became  first  a  Professor  of  divinity  at  Louvain,  and 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Ypres.  There  he  surrendered  him¬ 
self  to  a  life  of  unremitting  labour.  Ten  times  he  read 
over  every  word  of  the  works  of  Augustine;  thirty  times 
he  studied  all  those  passages  of  them  which  relate  to  the 
Pelagian  controversy.  All  the  fathers  of  the  church  were 
elaborately  collated  for  passages  illustrative  of  the  opinions 
of  the  Bishop  of  Hippo.  At  length,  after  an  uninterrupted 
study  of  twenty  years,  was  finished  the  celebrated  Augus¬ 
tinus  Cornelii  Jansenii.  With  St.  Austin  as  his  text  and 
guide,  the  good  Bishop  proceeded  to  establish,  on  the  au¬ 
thority  of  that  illustrious  father,  those  doctrines  which,  in 
our  times  and  country,  have  been  usually  distinguished  by 
the  terms  Calvinistic  or  Evangelical.  Heirs  of  guilt  and 
corruption,  he  considered  the  human  race,  and  each  suc¬ 
cessive  member  of  it,  as  lying  in  a  state  of  condemnation, 
and  as  advancing  towards  a  state  of  punishment;  until  an 
internal  impulse  from  on  high  awakens  one  and  another  to  a 
sense  of  this  awful  truth,  and  infuses  into  them  a  will  to  fly 
from  impending  vengeance.  But  this  impulse  is  imparted 
only  to  the  few;  and  on  them  it  is  bestowed  in  pursuance 
of  a  decree  existing  in  the  divine  intelligence  before  the 
creation  of  our  species.  Of  the  motives  of  their  preference 
not  even  a  conjecture  can  be  formed.  So  far  as  human 
knowledge  extends,  it  is  referable  simply  to  the  divine 
volition;  and  is  not  dependent  on  any  inherent  moral  dif¬ 
ference  between  the  objects  of  it,  and  those  from  whom 
such  mercy  is  withheld.  This  impulse  is  not,  however, 
irresistible.  Within  the  limits  of  his  powers,  original  or 
imparted,  man  is  a  free  agent; — free  to  admit  and  free  to 
reject  the  proffered  aid.  If  rejected,  it  enhances  his  re¬ 
sponsibility — if  admitted,  it  leads  him  by  continual  acces¬ 
sions  of  the  same  supernatural  assistance  to  an  acquiescence 
in  those  opinions,  to  the  exercise  of  those  affections,  and 
to  the  practice  of  those  virtues,  which  collectively  form 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


265 


the  substance  of  the  Christian  system.  Such  is  the  gene¬ 
ral  result  of  the  labours  of  Jansen.  On  the  day  which 
witnessed  the  completion  of  them,  he  was  removed  by  the 
plague  to  a  state  of  being  where  he  probably  learned  at 
once  to  rejoice  in  the  fidelity,  and  to  smile  at  the  simplicity 
of  those  sublunary  toils.  Within  an  hour  of  his  death  he 
made  a  will,  submitting  his  work  to  the  judgment  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  in  the  communion  of  which  he  had  lived 
and  was  about  to  die.  He  addressed  to  Pope  Urban  the 
Eighth  a  letter,  laying  the  fruits  of  his  studies  at  the  feet 
of  his  holiness,  “approving,  condemning,  advancing,  or 
retracting,  as  should  be  prescribed  by  the  thunder  of  the 
apostolic  see.”  Both  the  will  and  the  letter  were  sup¬ 
pressed  by  his  executors.  Two  years  from  the  death  of 
its  author  had  not  elapsed,  before  the  Augustinus  appeared 
in  print.  It  was  the  signal  of  a  contest  which  for  nearly 
seventy  years  agitated  the  Sorbonne  and  Versailles,  fired 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  ladies  and  the  divines  of  France,  and 
gave  to  her  historians  and  her  wits  a  theme,  used  with 
fatal  success,  to  swell  the  tide  of  hatred  and  of  ridicule — 
which  has  finally  swept  away  the  temporal  greatness,  and 
for  awhile  silenced  the  spiritual  ministrations,  of  the  Gal- 
lican  Church. 

Having  aided  largely  in  the  composition  of  this  memo¬ 
rable  treatise,  St.  Cyran  exerted  himself  with  still  greater 
effect  in  building  up  a  society  for  the  maintenance  and  pro¬ 
mulgation  of  the  principles  it  established.  Angelique  Ar- 
nauld  and  the  sisterhood  of  Port-Royal  were  now  settled 
at  Paris,  but  they  were  still  the  proprietors  of  the  deserted 
monastery;  and  there  were  gradually  assembled  a  college 
of  learned  men,  bound  bv  no  monastic  vows,  and  living 
according  to  no  positive  rule,  Benedictine  or  Franciscan. 
They  were  chiefly  disciples  of  St.  Cyran,  and  under  his 
guidance  had  retired  from  the  world  to  consecrate  their 
lives  to  penitence,  to  their  own  spiritual  improvement,  and 
to  the  instruction  of  mankind. 

Of  this  number  was  Antoine  Le  Maitre.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-seven,  he  had  been  advanced  to  the  rank  of  Coun¬ 
sellor  of  State,  and  enjoyed  at  the  bar  an  unrivalled  repu¬ 
tation  for  learning  and  for  eloquence.  When  he  was  to 
speak,  even  the  churches  were  abandoned.  Quitting  their 
pulpits  the  preachers  assisted  to  throng  the  hall  of  the 
palace  of  justice;  and  some  of  the  most  celebrated  among 
23 


£60 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


them  actually  obtained  from  their  superiors  a  permanent 
dispensation  from  their  ecclesiastical  duties  at  such  seasons, 
that  they  might  improve  in  the  arts  of  public  speaking  by 
listening  to  the  great  advocate.  When  he  spoke,  the  de¬ 
light  of  the  audience  broke  out  into  bursts  of  applause, 
which  the  Judges  were  unable  or  unwilling  to  repress.  “  I 
would  rather  be  the  object  of  those  plaudits  than  enjoy  all 
the  glory  of  my  Lord  the  Cardinal,”  was  the  somewhat 
hazardous  exclamation  of  one  of  his  friends,  as  he  joined, 
heart  and  hand,  in  the  universal  tumult. 

Far  different  was  the  estimate  which  his  devout  mother 
had  formed  of  the  prospects  of  her  son.  She  was  one  of 
the  sisters  of  Angelique  Arnauld,  and  amidst  the  cares  of 
conjugal  life  cherished  a  piety  at  least  as  pure  and  as  ardent 
as  ever  burned  in  the  bosom  of  a  Carthusian.  In  the 
wealth  and  glory  which  rewarded  his  forensic  eminence 
she  could  see  only  allurements,  to  which  (so  she  judged) 
his  peace  on  earth,  and  his  meetness  for  a  holier  state  of 
being  beyond  the  grave  must  be  sacrificed.  She  mourned 
over  his  fame,  and  prayed  that  her  child  might  be  abased,  so 
in  due  season  he  might  be  exalted.  It  happened  that  his  aunt 
Madame  D’Andilly,  in  the  last  awful  scene  of  life,  was  at¬ 
tended  by  her  kindred,  and  amongst  the  rest  by  Le  Maitre. 
Her  fading  eye  was  fixed  on  the  crucifix  borne  in  the  hand 
of  St.  Cyran,  as  she  listened  to  his  voice,  now  subdued  to  its 
gentlest  accents,  and  breathing  hope,  and  peace,  and  conso¬ 
lation.  It  was  as  though  some  good  angel  had  overpassed 
the  confines  of  the  earthly  and  heavenly  worlds,  to  give 
utterance,  in  human  language,  to  emotions  sacred  as  his 
own  high  abode,  and  to  thoughts  as  lofty  as  his  own  ce¬ 
lestial  nature.  The  great  orator  listened,  and  wondered, 
and  wept.  An  eloquence  such  as  even  his  fervent  imagi¬ 
nation  had  never  before  conceived,  en thralled  and  subdued 
his  inmost  soul.  It  was  but  a  soft  whisper  in  the  chamber 
of  death;  but  in  those  gentle  tones,  and  to  that  weeping 
company,  were  spoken  words,  compared  with  which  his 
own  eloquence  appeared  to  him  trivial,  harsh,  and  dissonant 
as  the  bowlings  of  the  forest.  And  when  his  dying  rela¬ 
tive’s  last  sigh  was  heard,  accompanied  by  the  solemn 
benediction,  “Depart,  O  Christian  soul!  from  this  world, 
in  the  name  of  the  Almighty  God  who  created  you,”  Le 
Maitre  felt  that  the  bonds  which  attached  him  to  that  world 
were  for  ever  broken.  lie  yielded  himself  to  the  spiritual 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS-.. 


267 


guidance  of  St.  Cyran;  resigned  his  office  and  his  calling; 
and  plunged  into  a  retreat,  where  in  solitude,  silence,  and 
continued  penances,  he  passed  the  remaining  twenty-one 
years  of  his  life.  By  the  advice  of  his  confessor,  the  exe¬ 
cution  of  this  design  was  postponed  till  the  close*1  of  the  an¬ 
nual  session  of  the  courts.  In  the  interval  he  resumed  his 
ordinary  employments,  hut  the  spirit  which  till  then  had 
animated  his  efforts  was  gone.  He  became  languid  and 
unimpressive;  and  one  of  the  judges  was  heard  to  mutter, 
that,  after  all,  the  real  power  of  Be  Maitre  was  that  of  per¬ 
suading  to  sleep.  This  was  too  much  even  for  a  penitent. 
Fixing  his  eye  on  the  critic,  he  once  more  summoned  his 
dormant  strength,  and  pouring  forth  all  the  energies  of  his 
soul  in  one  last  and  most  triumphant  speech,  he  for  ever 
quitted  the  scene  of  his  forensic  glories.  At  Port-Royal  he 
appropriately  charged  himself  with  the  care  of  the  proprie¬ 
tary  interests  of  the  house.  A  village  judge  in  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood  was  once  attended  by  the  illustrious  advocate  on 
a  question  of  the  purchase  of  some  bullocks.  Astounded 
by  his  eloquence,  (so  runs  the  story,)  the  judge  fell  on  his 
knees  before  the  pleader,  professing  his  unworthiness  to 
preside  in  his  presence,  and  imploring  that  they  might 
exchange  places.  A  more  likely  tale  records  that  the 
booksellers  had  got  up,  during  Le  Maitre’s  retreat,  an  edi¬ 
tion  of  his  speeches  full  of  interpolations  and  errors.  At 
“the  request  of  friends,”  though  not  with  the  consent  of 
his  confessors,  the  orator  undertook  a  corrected  edition. 
His  spiritual  guides  interfered.  They  prescribed,  as  a  new 
species  of  penance,  that  he  should  silently  acquiesce  in  this 
inroad  on  his  fame  as  a  speaker.  The  penitent  submitted, 
but  not  so  the  booksellers.  They  (worldly  men!)  talked 
loudly  of  violated  promises,  and  of  sheets  rendered  useless. 
He  listened  to  discourses  on  the  duty  of  mortifying  these 
last  movements  of  vain  glory.  Under  the  excitement  of 
the  dispute,  his  health,  already  enfeebled  by  his  mode  of 
life,  gave  way.  A  fever  decided  the  question  against  the 
publishers;  and  Le  Maitre  was  doomed  at  length  to  die  the 
victim  of  the  brilliant  career  he  had  so  long  and  resolutely 
abandoned. 

His  brother  Mons.  de  Sericourt  was  another  of  the  con¬ 
verts  of  St.  Cyran.  De  Sericourt  had  served  with  distinc¬ 
tion  under  Conde.  He  was  taken  prisoner  at  the  siege  of 
Philipsberg,  and  effected  his  escape  by  leaping  from  the 


268 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


walls  of  the  fortress  at  the  imminent  hazard  of  his  life. 
Under  the  deep  impression,  which  this  incident  left  on  his 
mind,  of  the  protecting  care  of  Providence,  he  returned  to 
Paris,  where  his  first  object  was  to  visit  his  brother,  the 
report  of  whose  retreat  from  the  bar  had  filled  him  with 
astonishment.  He  found  him  (the  words  are  Fontaine's) 
in  a  kind  of  a  tomb,  where  he  was  buried  alive;  his  manner 
bespeaking  all  the  gloom  of  penitence.  De  Sericourt  was 
shocked,  and  in  vain  endeavoured  to  recognise  Le  Maitre 
in  the  person  who  stood  before  him.  Immediately  changing 
his  demeanour,  Le  Maitre  embraced  his  brother  with  looks 
full  of  gaiety  and  spirit,  exclaiming,  “Behold  the  Le  Maitre 
of  former  days!  He  is  dead  to  the  world,  and  now  desires 
only  to  die  to  himself.  I  have  spoken  enough  to  men. 
Henceforth  I  wish  to  converse  only  with  God.  I  have 
exerted  myself  in  vain  to  plead  the  cause  of  others.  Now 
I  am  to  plead  my  own.  Do  you  intend  to  pay  me  the  same 
compliment  which  I  receive  from  the  world  at  large,  who 
believe  and  publish  that  I  have  gone  mad?”  Nothing 
could  be  more  remote  from  the  judgment  of  the  soldier. 
Instead  of  regarding  his  brother  as  mad,  he  aspired  to  share 
his  solitude,  and  succeeded.  Under  the  direction  of  St. 
Cyran,  he  joined  in  the  silence  and  austerities  of  the  advo¬ 
cate.  During  the  war  of  the  princes  he  once  more  took 
up  arms  for  the  defence  of  Port-Royal;  but  his  monastic 
life  was  soon  brought  to  a  close.  Philipsberg  had  in  re¬ 
ality  been  attended  with  less  danger.  At  the  age  of  thirty- 
nine  he  died,  a  premature  victim  to  fastings,  vigils,  con¬ 
finement,  and  probably  to  ennui.  Recruits  for  Port-Royal 
were  but  seldom  drawn  from  the  armies  of  the  Most  Chris¬ 
tian  King,  and  could  hardly  have  been  draughted  from  a 
less  promising  quarter. 

In  this  memorable  brotherhood  there  was  yet  a  third, 
Louis  Isaac  Le  Maitre  de  Saci.  At  the  early  age  of  fourteen 
he  was  placed  by  his  aunt,  the  Mere  Angelique,  under  the 
guidance  of  St.  Cyran.  From  that  prophetic  eye  the  future 
eminence  of  his  pupil  was  not  hidden.  “  God  will  restore 
him  to  you,  for  his  death  would  probably  be  the  greatest 
loss  which  the  church  could  sustain  ” — was  the  prediction 
with  which  St.  Cyran  at  once  disclosed  his  own  hopes  and 
allayed  the  fears  of  De  Saci’s  mother,  as  he  watched  over 
the  sick-bed  of  her  child.  To  ensure  the  fulfilment  of  those 
hopes,  the  mind  of  the  boy  was  sedulously  trained.  Ab- 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


269 


solute,  unhesitating  submission  to  human  authority,  as  re¬ 
presenting  the  Divine,  was  the  cardinal  principle  of  his 
education.  Though  himself  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
teachers  of  his  age  as  a  guide  to  others,  he,  on  no  single 
question,  presumed  to  guide  himself.  If  no  other  director 
could  have  been  had,  he  would  have  placed  himself  under 
the  direction  of  his  valet,  was  the  praise  with  which  his 
friends  expressed  their  admiration  of  his  illustrious  docility. 
By  the  advice  or  commands  of  St.  Cyran,  he  accordingly, 
like  his  brothers,  became  one  of  the  recluses  of  Port-Royal;; 
and,  like  them,  transferred  to  the  support  of  the  monastery 
all  his  worldly  wealth.  With  them  also  he  surrendered 
himself  up  to  penitence,  to  solitude,  and  to  silence;  and  in 
their  company  supplied  his  emaciated  frame  with  food 
which  rather  mocked  than  satisfied  its  wants.  Le  Maitre 
thus  describes  one  of  the  petits  soup  era  of  Port-Royal: — 
“It  is,  you  know,  but  a  slight  repast  which  they  serve  up 
for  us  in  the  evening;  but  it  engages  my  brother  De  Saci 
as  completely  as  the  most  sumptuous  meal.  For  my  own 
part,  such  is  the  warmth  of  my  temperament,  the  end  of 
my  good  cheer  follows  so  hard  on  its  beginning,  that  I  can 
hardly  tell  which  is  which.  When  all  is  over  with  me, 
and  I  have  nothing  left  to  do  but  to  wash  my  hands,  I  see 
my  brother  De  Saci,  as  composed  and  as  serious  as  ever, 
take  up  his  quarter  of  an  apple,  peel  it  deliberately,  cut  it 
up  with  precision,  and  swallow  it  at  leisure.  Before  he 
begins,  I  have  more  than  half  done.  When  his  little  all 
is  over,  he  rises  from  table  as  light  as  when  he  sat  down, 
leaving  untouched  the  greater  part  of  what  was  set  before 
him,  and  walks  off  as  seriously  as  a  man  who  had  been 
doing  great  things,  and  who  never  fasted  except  on  fast- 
days.”  Poor  Le  Maitre!  the  gay  spirit  which  had  animated 
the  palace  of  justice  had  its  transient  flashes  even  in  his 
“living  tomb;”  though  the  smile  was  in  this  case  lighted 
up  at  an  absurdity  which  had  well-nigh  conducted  his  bro¬ 
ther  to  that  tomb  where  all  life  is  extinct.  Under  these 
solemn  parodies  on  what  usually  goes  on  at  the  dinner 
table,  De  Saci  pined  away;  and  was  rescued,  not  without 
extreme  hazard,  from  the  effects  of  his  suicidal  abstemi¬ 
ousness.  He  returned  from  the  gates  of  death  with  a  spirit 
unsubdued  and  undaunted;  for  it  was  animated  by  hopes, 
and  sustained  by  convictions  which  gave  to  that  last  enemy 
the  aspect  and  the  welcome  of  a  friend,  Admitted,  in  re« 

23* 


270 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


luctant  obedience  to  his  confessor,  to  ordination  as  a  priest, 
he  assumed  the  office  of  director  to  the  recluses  of  either 
sex  at  Port-Royal.  Nature  struggled  in  the  bosom  of  Le 
Maitre  against  laying  bare  all  the  secrets  of  his  soul  to  the 
inspection  of  his  younger  brother.  But  authority  prevailed. 
Their  mother  led  the  way,  by  placing  herself  under  the  di¬ 
rection  of  her  son.  Blaize  Pascal  himself  meekly  took  the 
law  of  his  conscience  from  the  same  revered  lips.  Days 
of  persecution  followed;  and  De  Saci  was  driven  from  his 
retreat,  and  confined  for  more  than  two  years  in  the  Bas¬ 
tille.  There  was  fulfilled  the  prediction  of  St.  Cyran.  Fon¬ 
taine,  the  bosom  friend  of  De  Saci,  was  the  associate  of 
his  prison  hours.  They  were  hours  of  suffering  and  of 
pain.  But  they  had  been  ill  exchanged  for  the  brightest 
and  the  most  joyous  passed  by  the  revellers  in  the  gay  city 
beneath  them.  In  those  hours,  De  Saci  executed,  and  his 
friend  transcribed,  that  translation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures 
which  to  this  moment  is  regarded  in  France  as  the  most 
perfect  version  in  their  own  or  in  any  other  modern  tongue. 
While  yet  under  the  charge  of  St.  Cyran,  the  study  of  the 
divine  oracles  was  the  ceaseless  task  of  De  Saci.  In  mature 
life,  it  had  been  his  continual  delight;  in  the  absence  of 
every  other  solace,  it  possessed  his  mind  with  all  the  energy 
of  a  master  passion.  Of  the  ten  thousand  chords  which 
there  blend  together  in  sacred  harmony,  there  was  not  one 
which  did  not  awaken  a  responsive  note  in  the  heart  of  the 
aged  prisoner.  In  a  critical  knowledge  of  the  sacred  text 
he  may  have  had  many  superiors,  but  none  in  that  exquisite 
sensibility  to  the  grandeur,  the  pathos,  the  superhuman 
wisdom,  and  the  awful  purity  of  the  divine  original,  with¬ 
out  which  none  can  truly  apprehend,  or  accurately  render 
into  another  idiom,  the  sense  of  the  inspired  writers.  Even 
the  habitual  prostration  of  his  judgment  to  a  human  autho¬ 
rity,  believed  to  be  divine,  aided  him  as  a  translator.  It 
forbade,  indeed,  the  correction  of  errors,  but  it  imparted 
freedom  and  confidence  to  the  expression  of  all  that  he  ac¬ 
knowledged  as  truth.  Protestants  may  with  justice  except 
to  many  a  passage  of  De  Saci’s  translation;  but  they  will, 
we  fear,  search  their  own  libraries  in  vain  for  any,  where 
the  author’s  unhesitating  assurance  of  the  real  sense  of 
controverted  words  permits  his  style  to  flow  with  a  similar 
absence  of  constraint,  and  an  equal  warmth  and  glow  of 
diction. 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


271 


Fontaine,  the  humble  companion  of  his  biblical  labours, 
had  also  been  one  of  the  penitents  of  De  Saci.  He  was  a 
man  of  learning',  and  his  “  Memoires  sur  M.M.  de  Port- 
Royal,”  bespeak  a  nature  gentle,  affectionate,  and  devout. 
But  to  saturate  his  memory  with  the  discourse  of  minds 
more  exalted  than  his  own,  and  to  minister  to  them  in 
collating  or  transcribing  the  books  on  which  they  were  em¬ 
ployed,  limited  his  humble  desires.  He  was  successively 
the  amanuensis  of  De  Saci,  and  the  secretary  of  the  “great 
Arnauld.”  With  the  exception  of  Pascal,  a  name  so  great 
does  not  appear  among  the  disciples  of  St.  Cyran,  or  the 
inmates  of  Port-Royal. 

Antoine  Arnauld  was  the  youngest  child  of  the  parents 
of  the  Mere  Angelique:  he  was  consequently  the  uncle  of 
Le  Maitre,  De  Sericourt,  and  De  Saci.  From  his  earliest 
years  the  reputation  of  his  genius  and  learning  had  ren¬ 
dered  him  the  object  of  universal  notice  and  expectation. 
Richelieu  himself  is  recorded  to  have  stolen  silently  into 
his  chamber,  to  enjoy  the  unpremeditated  conversation  of 
the  young  student.  The  Cardinal  had  no  apparent  reason 
to  dread  that  in  this  case  his  advances  would  be  repulsed; 
for  Arnauld  possessed  several  rich  benefices,  dressed  in  the 
fashion,  and  even  kept  a  carriage.  But  repulsed  they  were, 
and  by  the  influence  of  the  man  to  whom  similar  allure¬ 
ments  had  been  presented  in  vain.  In  his  dungeon  at 
Vincennes,  St. .Cyran  received  a  visit  from  the  young  abbe. 
That  almost  magical  influence  was  again  exerted  with  irre¬ 
sistible  power.  Arnauld  renounced  his  preferments,  as¬ 
sumed  the  garb  of  penitence,  and  became  the  companion 
of  his  nephews,  Le  Maitre  and  Sericourt,  in  their  austere 
retirement.  This  abandonment  of  the  world  was  not,  how¬ 
ever,  so  absolute-,  but  that  he  still  sought  the  rank  of  a 
socius ,  or  fellow  of  the  Sorbonne.  By  the  authority  of 
Richelieu,  his  claims  were  rejected.  But  not  even  the 
Cardinal  could  obstruct  the  advancement  of  so  eminent  a 
scholar  and  divine  to  the  dignity  of  a  doctor  in  divinity. 
“To  defend  the  truth,  if  necessary,  to  the  death,”  was  in 
those  days  one  of  the  vows  of  such  a  graduate — vows,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  light  as  air  with  most  men,  but,  in  this  in¬ 
stance,  engraven  as  with  a  pen  of  iron  on  the  soul  of  the 
new  professor  of  theology.  A  year  had  scarcely  elapsed 
since  he  had  received  from  the  lips  of  his  dying  mother  an 
adjuration  to  be  faithful  in  the  defence  of  truth  at  the  ex- 


272 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


pense,  were  it  possible,  of  a  thousand  lives.  Touched 
with  the  coincidence  of  his  academical  oath  and  of  this 
maternal  precept,  he  thenceforward  existed  but  to  combat 
for  what  he  at  least  esteemed  the  truth;  and  endured  po¬ 
verty,  exile,  and  reproach,  as  he  would  have  cheerfully 
submitted  to  death,  in  that  sacred  warfare.  In  controversy 
he  found  his  vocation,  his  triumph,  and  perhaps  his  delight. 
The  author  of  more  than  a  hundred  volumes,  he  was  en¬ 
gaged  in  almost  as  many  contests.  His  great  work,  La 
frequente  Communion ,  is  essentially  controversial.  He 
warred  with  the  Jesuits  as  a  body;  and  with  several  of 
their  most  eminent  writers,  as  Sirmond,  Nouet,  and  He 
Bonis,  he  carried' on  separate  debates.  Apologies  for  St. 
Cyran,  Jansenius,  and  for  the  ladies  of  Port-Royal,  flowed 
copiously  from  his  ever  ready  pen.  He  assailed  the  meta¬ 
physical  meditations  of  Des  Cartes,  and  Malebranche’s 
theory  of  miracles.  Even  with  his  friend  and  associate, 
Nicole,  he  contended,  on  an  attempt  to  apply  certain  geo¬ 
metrical  principles  to  the  solution  of  some  problems  in 
divinity.  Claude,  Maimbourg,  and  Annat,  were  among  his 
adversaries.  The  mere  list  of  his  works  occupies  twenty- 
six  closely  printed  octavo  pages.  A  rapid  analysis  of  them 
fills  a  large  volume.  If  that  compilation  may  be  trusted, 
(he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  should  undertake  to  verify 
it,)  the  vast  collection  of  books  which  bear  the  name  of 
Antoine  Arnauld  scarcely  contain  a  tract,  except  those  on 
mathematics,  in  which  he  is  not  engaged  in  theological  or 
scientific  strife  with  some  antagonist.  In  the  catalogue,  of 
course,  appears  the  celebrated  treatise  De  la  Perpetuite  de 
la  Foi  sur  V Eucharistie,  a  work  rewarded  with  higher  ap¬ 
plause  than  any  other  of  his  avowed  writings.  Twenty- 
seven  Bishops  and  twenty  Doctors  prefaced  it  with  eulogies 
on  the  learning,  piety,  talents,  and  orthodoxy  of  the  illus¬ 
trious  author.  He  dedicated  it  to  Clement  IX.,  and  was  re¬ 
paid  with  the  most  glowing  compliments.  Perhaps  a  still 
more  gratifying  tribute  to  his  success  was  the  conversion  to 
the  Roman  Catholic  faith  ofTurenne,  of  which  this  book  was 
the  occasion;  and  yet  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the 
real  author  was  not  Arnauld,  but  Nicole.  In  the  title-page  of 
a  book,  designed  to  refute  the  formidable  Claude,  the  two 
friends  judged  the  name  of  a  doctor  of  the  church  would 
avail  more  than  that  of  a  simple  tonsure — a  literary  and 
pious  fraud,  which  it  is  impossible  to  excuse;  and,  on  the 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


273 


side  of  Nicole,  an  example  of  zeal  for  a  man’s  cause  tri¬ 
umphing  over  his  love  of  fame,  to  which  it  would  not  be 
easy  to  find  a  parallel.  Such,  however,  was  the  height  of 
Arnauld’s  reputation,  and  such  the  affluence  of  his  mind, 
that  it  is  scarcely  reasonable  to  attribute  this  disingenuous 
proceeding  to  selfish  motives.  Few  men  have  been  more 
enamoured  of  the  employments,  or  less  covetous  of  the 
rewards,  of  a  literary  life.  For  nearly  threescore  years  he 
lived  pen  in  hand,  except  when  engaged  in  devotion,  or  in 
celebrating  the  offices  of  the  church  of  Port-Royal  on  occa¬ 
sions  of  peculiar  dignity.  His  was  one  of  those  rare  natures 
to  which  intellectual  exertion  brings  relief  rather  than  las¬ 
situde;  thus  giving  to  feebler  understanding  the  assurance, 
that  the  living  spirit  which  is  in  man,  if  disunited  from 
the  burdens  of  mortality,  would  be  capable  of  efforts  com¬ 
mensurate  with  an  immortal  existence. 

His  book,  De  la  frequent e  Communion ,  was  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  the  seventy  years’  religious  war  which  ended 
in  the  destruction  of  Port-Royal.  To  restore  the  severe 
maxims  of  Christian  antiquity  respecting  the  spiritual  qua¬ 
lification  of  communicants,  and  thus  to  raise  a  standard  of 
church  membership  incomparably  more  exalted  than  that 
which  prevailed  in  his  own  generation,  was  the  avowed  ob¬ 
ject  of  Arnauld.  His  scarcely  concealed  purpose  was  to 
chastise  the  lax  morality  to  which  the  Jesuits  had  lent  their 
sanction;  and  to  repel  their  attacks  on  the  more  rigid 
system  of  St.  Cyran.  Revised  in  his  prison  by  that  father 
of  the  faithful,  and  sheltered  by  the  commendation  of  divines 
of  every  rank  and  order,  the  book — forbearing  in  style, 
lofty  in  sentiment,  replete  with  various  learning,  and  breath¬ 
ing  an  eloquence  at  once  animated  by  unhesitating  faith, 
and  chastened  by  the  most  profound  humility— broke  like 
a  peal  of  thunder  over  the  heads  of  his  startled  antagonists. 
Such  was  the  fury  of  their  resentment,  that  the  Marshal  de 
Vihe  sagaciously  observed,  “There  must  be  some  secret 
in  all  this.  The  Jesuits  are  never  so  excited  when  no¬ 
thing  but  the  glory  of  God  is  at  stake.”  Though  at  first 
struck  down  by  the  censures  of  a  conclave  of  Bishops,  with 
Mazarin  at  their  head,  Nouet,  the  great  advocate  of  the  so¬ 
ciety,  returned  again  and  again  to  the  assault.  Pulpits 
fulminated,  presses  groaned.  On  the  one  side  the  Sor- 
bonne  invoked  the  aid  of  the  civil  power,  then  in  feeble 
hands;  on  the  other,  the  Jesuits  appealed  to  the  Papal  See, 


274 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


then  rising  in  new  vigour  from  the  disasters  of  the  pre¬ 
ceding  century.  Arnauld  was  cited  by  the  Pope,  and  re¬ 
quired  by  the  Cardinal  minister  of  France  to  appear  in  his 
own  defence  at  Home.  Against  this  infringement  of  the 
Gallican  liberties,  the  university,  the  Sorbonne,  and  the 
Parliament  of  Paris  remonstrated,  but  Mazarin  was  in¬ 
flexible. 

The  Holy  See  took  cognizance  of  the  cause,  though  the 
person  of  the  accused  was  beyond  their  reach.  In  his  ab¬ 
sence,  that  infallible  tribunal  decided  not  to  let  the  world 
know  whether,  of  the  thirty  erroneous  opinions  imputed  to 
Arnauld,  twenty  and  nine  were  heretical  or  not.  Arnauld 
himself,  however,  was  unable  to  stand  his  ground.  For 
twenty-five  years  together,  he  was  compelled  to  live  in  a 
voluntary  concealment;  which  his  enemies  had  not  the 
power,  nor  perhaps  the  wish,  to  violate.  His  retirement 
was  passed  in  the  monastery  of  Port-Royal,  or  in  one  of 
the  adjacent  hermitages. 

That  ancient  seat  of  their  order  had  now  been  long  de¬ 
serted  by  his  sister  Angelique  and  her  associates.  Their 
residence  at  Paris  had  not  been  unfruitful  of  events.  They 
had  exchanged  the  jurisdiction  of  the  general  of  their  or¬ 
der  for  that  of  the  archbishop  of  Paris.  On  the  resigna¬ 
tion  of  Angelique,  the  abbatial  dignity  had  been  made 
elective  in  their  house.  An  ineffectual  scheme  of  devoting 
themselves  to  the  perpetual  adoration  of  the  Holy  Eucha¬ 
rist,  had  deeply  exercised  their  thoughts.  Occasional  mi¬ 
racles  had  awakened  or  rewarded  their  piety.  An  inspired 
litany  (so  it  is  believed)  had  fallen  insensibly  from  the  pen 
of  sister  Agnes,  which  eight  Doctors  censured,  St.  Cyran 
vindicated,  and  the  Pope  suppressed.  From  his  prison  at 
Vincennes,  their  great  apologist  directed  their  consciences, 
and  guided  them  to  the  office  of  educating  children  of  their 
own  sex — a  wise  and  happy  project,  which  brought  back 
into  the  sphere  of  ordinary  duties,  minds  soaring  with  in¬ 
definite  aims  into  the  regions  of  mysticism,  and  wasting,  in 
efforts  for  an  ideal  perfection,  talents  eminently  fitted  to 
bless  and  to  improve  mankind.  To  restore  the  sisterhood 
to  the  quiet  valley  where  their  predecessors  had  worshipped, 
was  the  next  care  of  St.  Cyran.  True,  it  threatened  their 
lives;  but  “  is  it  not,”  he  asked,  “  as  well  to  serve  God  in 
an  hospital  as  in  a  church,  if  such  be  his  pleasure?” 

Are  any  prayers  more  acceptable  than  those  of  the  af- 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS 


275 


flicted?”  Angelique’s  heart  had  a  ready  answer  to  such 
questions  from  such  an  inquirer.  In  that  sequestered 
church  where  angels,  and  a  still  more  awful  presence,  had 
once  dwelt,  they  could  not  but  still  abide,  (such  was  his 
assurance,)  and  she  returned  to  seek  them  there.  She 
came,  attended  by  a  large  proportion  of  the  ladies  of  Port- 
Royal,  hailed  by  the  poor  and  aged,  whom  in  former  times 
she  had  cherished,  and  welcomed  bv  her  kinsmen  and  the 
companions  of  their  religious  solitude.  It  was  their  first 
and  only  meeting.  Les  Granges  (a  farm-house  on  the  hill¬ 
side)  became  the  residence  of  the  recluses,  the  gates  of  the 
monastery  closing  on  the  nuns.  Bound  by  no  monastic 
vows,  the  men  addressed  themselves  to  such  employments 
as  each  was  supposed  best  qualified  to  fill.  Schools  for  the 
instruction  of  youth  in  every  branch  of  literature  and 
science  were  kept  by  Lancelot,  Nicole,  Fontaine,  and  De 
Saci.  Some  laboured  at  translations  of  the  fathers,  and 
other  works  of  piety.  Arnauld  applied  his  ceaseless  toils 
in  logic,  geometry,  metaphysics,  and  theological  debate. 
Physicians  of  high  celebrity  exercised  their  art  in  all  the 
neighbouring  villages. 

Le  Maitre  and  other  eminent  lawyers  addressed  them¬ 
selves  to  the  work  of  arbitrating  in  all  the  dissensions  of 
the  vicinage.  There  were  to  be  seen  gentlemen  working 
assiduously  as  vine-dressers;  officers  making  shoes;  noble¬ 
men  sawing  timber  and  repairing  windows;  a  society  held 
together  by  no  vows;  governed  by  no  corporate  laws;  subject 
to  no  common  superior;  pursuing  no  joint  designs,  yet  all 
living  in  unbroken  harmony;  all  following  their  respective 
callings;  silent,  grave,  abstracted,  self-afflicted  by  fastings, 
watchings,  and  humiliations — a  body  of  penitents  on  their 
painful  progress  through  a  world  which  they  had  resolved 
at  once  to  serve  and  to  avoid.  From  year  to  year,  till 
death  or  persecution  removed  them  from  the  valley  of  Port- 
Royal,  the  members  of  this  singular  association  adhered 
pertinaciously  to  their  design;  nor  among  their  annals  will 
be  found  more,  we  think,  than  a  single  name  on  which 
rests  the  imputation  of  infidelity,  or  fickleness  of  purpose. 
To  the  nuns,  indeed,  no  such  change  was  possible.  Like 
the  inhabitants  of  Les  Granges,  they  employed  themselves  in 
educating  the  children  of  the  rich  and  the  poor,  in  almsgiving, 
and  in  other  works  of  mercy.  Their  renunciation  of  se¬ 
cular  cares  was  combined  (no  common  alliance)  with  an 


276 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


entire  superiority  to  all  secular  interests.  Angelique,  now 
the  elected  abbess,  and  in  that  character  the  ruler  of  the 
temporalities  of  the  convent,  exhibited  a  princely  spirit  of 
munificence — nourished  and  sustained  by  the  most  severe 
and  self-denying  economy.  She  and  her  sisterhood  re¬ 
served  for  themselves  little  more  than  a  place  in  their  own 
list  of  paupers.  So  firm  was  her  reliance  on  the  Divine 
bounty,  and  so  abstemious  her  use  of  it,  that  she  hazarded 
a  long  course  of  heroic  improvidence,  justified  by  the  event 
and  ennobled  by  the  motive,  but  at  once  fitted  and  desig¬ 
nated  rather  to  excite  the  enthusiasm  of  ordinary  mortals, 
than  to  afford  a  model  for  their  imitation.  Buildings  were 
erected  both  at  Port-Royal  de  Paris  and  Port-Royal  des 
Champs;  in  the  serene  majesty  of  which  the  worshipper 
might  discern  an  appropriate  vestibule  to  the  temple  made 
without  hands,  towards  which  his  adoration  was  directed. 
Wealth  was  never  permitted  to  introduce,  nor  poverty  to 
exclude  any  candidate  for  admission  as  a  novice  or  a  pupil. 
On  one  occasion  twenty  thousand  francs  were  given  as  a  re¬ 
lief  to  a  distressed  community;  on  another,  four  times  that 
sum  were  restored  to  a  benefactress,  whose  heart  repent¬ 
ed  a  bounty  which  she  had  no  longer  the  right  to  reclaim. 
Their  regular  expenditure  exceeded  by  more  than  seven¬ 
fold  their  certain  income;  nor  were  they  ever  disappointed  in 
their  assurance,  that  the  annual  deficiency  of  more  than  forty 
thousand  francs  would  be  supplied  by  the  benevolence  of 
their  fellow  Christians.  What  was  the  constraining  force 
of  charity,  Angelique  had  learned  from  the  study  of  her 
own  heart,  and  she  relied  with  a  well-founded  confidence 
on  the  same  generous  impulse  in  the  hearts  of  others.  The 
grace,  the  gaiety,  and  tenderness  of  her  nature,  which 
might  have  embellished  courts  and  palaces,  were  drawn 
into  continual  exercise  to  mitigate  the  anguish  of  disease, 
to  soothe  the  wretched,  and  to  instruct  the  young.  Her 
hands  ministered  day  and  night  to  the  relief  of  those  whose 
maladies  were  loathsome  or  contagious,  and  her  voice  al¬ 
layed  their  tenors.  With  playful  ingenuity  she  would 
teach  her  associates  how  to  employ  the  vestments,  the 
furniture,  and,  when  other  resources  failed,  even  the  sa- 
ered  plate  of  the  monastery,  in  clothing  the  naked,  though 
it  left  themselves  in  want,  and  in  feeding  the  hungry, 
though  it  deprived  themselves  of  all  present  resources. 
While  distributing  not  merely  to  the  necessities  of  the  in- 


# 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  277 

digent,  but  to  the  relief  of  persons  of  her  own  rank  in  life, 
there  was  in  the  bosom  of  Angelique  a  feeling  which 
revolted  not  against  dependence  on  alms,  for  her  vows 
of  poverty  required  it,  but  against  soliciting  aid  even  from 
her  nearest  kindred; — a  feeling  condemned  as  human,  per¬ 
haps,  in  her  stern  self-judgment,  but  assuredly  one  of  those 
emotions  which  the  best  of  our  race  are  the  last  to  relin¬ 
quish.  And  if  it  be  true,  as  true  it  surely  is,  that  to  the 
culture  and  exercise  of  the  benevolent  affections  as  an  ulti¬ 
mate  end  all  other  ends  of  human  life-— knowledge,  practi¬ 
cal  skill,  meditative  power,  self-control,  and  the  rest — are 
but  subservient  means,  who  shall  deny  to  such  a  course  of 
life  as  that  of  the  nuns  of  Port-Royal,  the  praise  of  wis¬ 
dom,  however  ill  he  may  judge  of  the  wisdom  which  esta¬ 
blished  and  maintained  conventical  institutions?  Some  af¬ 
fections,  indeed,  they  could  not  cultivate.  Two  of  the  deep¬ 
est  and  the  richest  mines  of  their  nature,  maternal  and  con¬ 
jugal  love,  lay  unwrought  and  unexplored.  Yet  they  lived, 
as  wisdom  we  are  told  ought  to  live,  with  children  round 
their  knees;  training  them  for  every  office  in  life,  if  not 
with  a  mother’s  yearnings,  with  perhaps  something  more 
than  a  mother’s  prudence.  Over  this  singular  theocracy, 
male  and  female,  presided  St.  Cyran,  exercising  from  his 
dungeon  a  supreme  authority;  and  under  him  ruled  Antoine 
Singlin,  the  general  confessor  both  of  the  recluses  and  the 
nuns.  In  the  conduct  of  souls,  (such  is  the  appropriate  style,) 
Singlin  was  supposed  to  excel  all  the  professors  of  that 
most  critical  science.  Pascal,  De  Saci,  and  Arnauld  sat  at 
his  feet  with  child-like  docility.  Ministers  of  state,  advo¬ 
cates,  and  bishops,  crowded  reverently  round  his  pulpit; 
yet  by  the  confession,  or  rather  the  boast  of  his  disciples, 
he  was  distinguished  neither  by  learning,  talents  nor  elo¬ 
quence.  The  mystery  of  his  absolute  dominion  over  intel¬ 
lects  so  incomparably  superior  to  his  own,  is  partly,  at  least, 
dispelled  by  what  remains  of  his  writings.  They  indicate  a 
mind  at  once  discriminating  and  devout,  conversant  alike 
with  human  nature  and  with  the  Divine,  exerting  all  its 
powers  to  penetrate  the  labyrinth  of  man’s  heart,  and  re¬ 
cruiting  these  powers  by  habitual  communion  with  the 
source  of  wisdom. 

Guided  by  such  pastors,  the  Port-Royalists  were  follow¬ 
ing  out  a  progress  more  tranquil  than  that  of  John  Bun- 
yan’s  Pilgrim,  when  the  wars  of  the  Fronde  rudely  scat- 
24 


278 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tered  the  shepherd  and  the  flock.  Most  of  the  nuns  fled 
for  refuge  to  Paris,  but  the  recluses  (they  were  Frenchmen 
still)  appeared  three  hundred  strong,  in  defence  of  their  se¬ 
questered  valley.  Above  their  hair-shirts  glittered  coats-of- 
mail.  As  the  last  notes  of  the  anthem  died  away,  the 
trumpet  summoned  the  worshippers  to  military  exercises. 
Spears  and  helmets  flashed  through  the  woods — plumes 
waved  over  many  a  furrowed  brow — intrenchments,  which 
may  still  be  traced,  were  thrown  up;  and  the  evening-gun, 
the  watchword,  and  the  heavy  tread  of  cavalry,  broke  a  si¬ 
lence  till  then  undisturbed,  except  by  the  monastic  choir, 
or  the  half-uttered  prayer  of  some  lonely  penitent.  De 
Sericourt  felt  once  again  his  pulse  beat  high  as  he  drew 
out  the  martial  column,  and  raised  the  long  forgotten  words 
of  peremptory  command.  But  ere  long  a  voice  more  sub¬ 
dued,  though  not  less  peremptory,  was  heard  to  silence 
his.  De  Saci’s  heart  mourned  over  this  reliance  on  an 
arm  of  flesh.  Watching  the  first  pause  in  the  new  enthu¬ 
siasm  of  his  associates,  he  implored  them  to  lay  aside  their 
weapons;  and  in  long-suffering  to  submit  themselves  and 
their  course  to  the  Supreme  Disposer  of  events.  At  an  in¬ 
stant  the  whole  aspect  of  Port-Royal  was  changed.  Stu¬ 
dents  returned  to  their  books,  penitents  to  their  cells,  and 
handicraftsmen  to  their  ordinary  labours.  It  was  a  change 
as  sudden  and  as  complete  as  when,  at  the  bidding  of  the 
Genius,  the  crowded  bridge  and  the  rushing  river  disap¬ 
peared  from  the  eyes  of  Mirza,  leaving  before  him  nothing 
but  the  long  hollow  Valley  of  Bagdad,  with  oxen,  sheep, 
and  camels  grazing  on  the  sides  of  it. 

To  one  inmate  of  Port-Royal  the  terrors  of  an  impend¬ 
ing  war  had  brought  no  disquietude.  Angelique  remained 
there,  the  guardian  angel  of  the  place.  Hundreds  of  ruined 
peasants  were  daily  fed  by  her  bounty.  “  Perhaps  I  shall 
not  be  able  ”  (the  quotation  is  from  one  of  her  letters  written 
at  the  time)  “to  send  you  a  letter  to-morrow,  for  all  our 
horses  and  asses  are  dead  with  hunger.  Oh!  how  little  do 
princes  know  the  detailed  horrors  of  war.  All  the  pro- 
vender  of  the  beasts  we  have  been  obliged  to  divide  be- 
tween  ourselves  and  the  starving  poor.  We  have  con¬ 
cealed  as  many  of  the  peasants  and  of  their  cattle  as  we 
could,  in  our  monastery,  to  save  them  from  being  mur¬ 
dered  and  losing  all  their  substance.  Our  dormitory  and 
the  chapter-house  are  full  of  horses; — we  are  almost  sti- 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


279 


fled  by  being  pent  up  with  these  beasts,  but  we  could  not 
resist  the  piercing  lamentations  of  the  starving  and  the  heart¬ 
broken  poor.  In  the  cellar  we  have  concealed  forty  cows. 
Our  court-yards  and  out-houses  are  stuffed  full  of  fowls, 
turkeys,  ducks,  geese,  and  asses.  The  church  is  piled  up 
to  the  ceiling  with  corn,  oats,  beans,  and  peas,  and  with 
caldrons,  kettles,  and  other  things  belonging  to  the  cotta- 
gers.  Our  laundry  is  filled  by  the  aged,  the  blind,  the 
maimed,  the  halt,  and  infants.  The  infirmary  is  full  of 
sick  and  wounded.  We  have  torn  up  all  our  rags  and 
linen  clothing  to  dress  their  sores;  we  have  no  more,  and 
are  now  at  our  wits’  end.  We  dare  not  go  into  the  fields 
for  any  more,  as  they  are  full  of  marauding  parties.-  We 
hear  that  the  abbey  of  St.  Cyran  has  been  burned  and  pil¬ 
laged.  Our  own  is  threatened  with  an  attack  every  day. 
The  cold  weather  alone  preserves  us  from  pestilence.  We 
are  so  closely  crowded,  that  deaths  happen  continually. 
God,  however,  is  with  us,  and  we  are  at  peace. 

That  inward  peace  which  Angelique  was  thus  enabled 
to  maintain  during  the  horrors  of  civil  war,  was  soon  to  be 
exposed  to  a  more  arduous  trial.  To  the  baffled  antago¬ 
nists  of  Arnauld,  Port-Royal  was  an  abomination.  There 
dwelt  in  safety  their  intended  victim,  plying  his  dreaded 
pen,  surrounded  by  his  kindred,  his  scholars,  and  his  allies; 
and  all  engaged  in  the  same  contest  with  the  casuistry,  the 
theology,  and  the  morals  of  the  society  of  Jesus.  Against 
these  devoted  enemies  one  Brisacier,  a  Jesuit,  led  the 
assault.  His  articles  of  impeachment  bore  that  they  de¬ 
spised  the  Eucharist,  that  they  had  neither  holy  water  nor 
images  in  their  churches,  and  that  they  prayed  neither  to 
the  Virgin  nor  the  Saints.  Vain  the  clearest  refutation  of 
calumnies  so  shocking  to  the  Catholic  ears,  and  vain  the 
arehiepiscopal  thunders  which  rebuked  the  slanderer.  Fa¬ 
ther  Meignier,  of  the  same  holy  company,  denounced  to 
the  astonished  world  a  secret  conspiracy  against  the  reli¬ 
gion  of  Christ,  the  leaders  of  which  were  the  Abbot  of  St. 
Cyran  and  Antoine  Arnauld — the  Voltaire  and  the  Diderot 
of  their  age.  But  human  credulity  has  its  limits,  and 
Meignier  had  overstepped  them.  For  a  moment  the  as¬ 
sailants  paused;  but  at  last,  the  womb  of  time,  fertile  in 
prodigies,  gave  birth  to  the  far-famed  “five  propositions’'’ 
of  Father  Coruet — a  palpable  obscure,  lying  in  the  dim 
regions  of  psychological  divinity,  and  doomed  for  succes- 


280 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


sive  generations  to  perplex,  to  exasperate,  and  to  overwhelm 
with  persecution,  or  with  ridicule,  no  inconsiderable  part 
of  the  Christian  world.  That  these  five  dogmas  on  the 
mystery  of  the  divine  grace,  were  to  be  found  within  the  Au¬ 
gustinus  of  Jansenius,  was  not  the  original  charge.  They 
were  at  first  denounced  by  Comet  as  opinions  drawn  from 
the  work  of  the  Bishop  of  Ypres,  by  Arnauld  and  other 
Doctors  of  the  Gallican  church,  and  by  them  inculcated  on 
their  own  disciples.  Innocent  the  Tenth  condemned  the 
propositions  as  heretical;  and  to  the  authority  of  the  Holy 
See,  Arnauld  and  his  friends  implicitly  bowed.  In  a  wood- 
cut  prefixed  to  this  papal  constitution  by  the  triumphant 
Jesuits,  Jansenius  appeared  in  his  episcopal  dress,  but 
accoutred  with  the  aspect,  the  wings,  and  the  other  well- 
known  appendages  of  an  evil  spirit,  around  whom  were 
playing  the  lightnings  of  the  Vatican. 

The  man  and  the  heresy  thus  happily  disposed  of,  a  sin¬ 
gle  question  remained — Were  the  peccant  propositions  to 
be  found  in  the  Augustinus?  Arnauld  declared  that  he  had 
studied  the  book  from  end  to  end,  and  could  not  find  them 
there.  That  there  they  were'  nevertheless  to  be  found,  the 
Jesuits  as  strongly  asserted.  To  have  quoted  by  chapter 
and  page  the  offensive  passages,  would  have  spoiled  the 
most  promising  quarrel  which  had  arisen  in  the  Church 
since  the  close  of  the  Tridentine  Council.  Still-born  must 
then  have  perished  the  ever-memorable  distinction  of  the 
droit  and  the  fait — the  droit  being  the  justice  of  the  papal 
censure,  which  all  Catholics  admitted — the  fait  being  the 
existence,  in  the  Augustinus ,  of  the  censured  propositions, 
which  all  Jansenists  denied.  The  vulgar  mode  of  trial  by 
quotation,  being  discarded,  nothing  remained  but  trial  by 
authority.  Annat,  the  King’s  Confessor,  a  Jesuit  in  reli¬ 
gion,  and  Mazarin,  the  King’s  Minister,  a  Jesuit  in  politics, 
each,  from  different  motives,  found  his  account  in  humi¬ 
liating  the  Port-Royalists.  Selected  by  them,  a  conclave 
of  Parisian  Doctors  decreed  that  the  five  propositions  were 
in  the  book,  and  should  be  in  the  book.  A  papal  bull 
affirmed  their  sentence,  and  then  a  second  conclave  re¬ 
quired  all  the  ecclesiastics,  and  all  the  religious  communities 
of  France,  to  subscribe  their  assent  to  the  order  which  had 
thus  affiliated  these  bastard  opinions  on  poor  Jansenius. 
That  such  a  defender  of  the  faith  as  Antoine  Arnauld  should 
receive  their  mandate  in  silence,  the  authors  of  it  neither 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


28  i 


wished  nor  expected.  In  words  exactly  transcribed,  though 
not  avowedly  quoted,  from  Chrysostome  and  Augustine, 
he  drew  up  his  own  creed  on  the  questions  of  grace  and 
free-will;  and  in  good  round  terms  acquitted  the  Bishop  of 
Ypres  of  having  written  more  or  less.  A  third  conclave 
censured  the  apologist,  unconscious  apparently  that  their 
fulminations  would  reach  the  holy  fathers  of  Constantinople 
and  Hippo.  They  at  least  reached  the  object  at  which  they 
in  reality  aimed.  “  Could  the  most  Christian  King  permit 
that  penitent  recluses  and  young  children  should  any  longer 
assemble  for  instruction,  under  the  influence  of  a  man  con¬ 
victed  of  heresy  on  the  subject  of  efficacious  grace,  and 
unable  or  unwilling  to  find  in  the  Augustinus  what  the 
Pope  himself  had  said  might  be  found  there?”  Anne  of 
Austria  listened,  Mazarin  whispered,  and  she  obeyed. 
Armed  with  her  authority,  her  lieutenants  appeared  at  Port- 
Royal  to  restore  Les  Granges  and  the  forests  around  it  to 
their  ancient  solitude;  and  then  had  for  ever  fallen  the  glo¬ 
ries  of  that  sacred  valley,  but  for  an  incident  so  strange 
and  opportune,  as  to  force  back  the  memory  to  the  preci¬ 
pitate  descent  from  Mount  Ida  of  the  Homeric  Deities,  to 
rescue,  in  the  agony  of  his  fate,  some  panting  hero  on  the 
field  of  Troy. 

Mademoiselle  Perrier  was  the  niece  of  Blaize  Pascal. 
She  was  a  child  in  her  eleventh  year,  and  a  scholar  residing 
in  the  monastery  of  Port-Royal.  For  three  years  and  a 
half  she  had  been  afflicted  with  a  fistula  lacrymalis.  The 
adjacent  bones  had  become  carious,  and  the  most  loath¬ 
some  ulcers  disfigured  her  countenance.  All  remedies  had 
been  tried  in  vain;  the  medical  faculty  had  exhausted  their 
resources.  One  desperate  experiment  remained — it  was 
the  actual  cautery.  For  this  the  day  was  appointed,  and 
her  father  had  set  out  on  a  journey  to  be  present  at  the 
operation.  Now  it  came  to  pass  that  M.  de  la  Potherie, 
who  was  at  once  a  Parisian  ecclesiastic,  a  great-uncle  of 
Angelique  and  of  Arnauld,  and  an  assiduous  collector  of 
relics,  had  possessed  himself  of  one  of  the  thorns  com¬ 
posing  the  crown  of  which  we  read  in  the  Evangelists. 
Great  had  been  the  curiosity  of  the  various  convents  to 
see  it,  and  the  ladies  of  Port-Royal  had  earnestly  solicited 
that  privilege.  Accordingly,  on  the  24th  of  March,  in 
the  year  1656,  the  day  of  the  week  being  Friday,  and  the 
week  the  third  in  Lent,  a  solemn  procession  of  nuns,, 

24* 


282 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


novices,  and  scholars,  moved  along  the  choir  of  the  mo¬ 
nastic  church,  chanting  appropriate  hymns,  and  each  one, 
in  her  turn,  kissing  the  holy  relic.  When  the  turn  of 
Mademoiselle  Perrier  arrived,  she,  by  the  advice  of  the 
schoolmistress,  touched  her  diseased  eye  with  the  thorn, 
not  doubting  that  it  would  effect  a  cure.  She  regained  her 
room,  and  the  malady  was  gone!  The  cure  was  instanta¬ 
neous  and  complete.  So  strict,  however,  was  the  silence 
of  the  abbey,  especially  in  Lent,  that  except  to  the  com¬ 
panion  who  shared  her  chamber,  Mademoiselle  Perrier  did 
not  at  first  divulge  the  miracle.  On  the  following  day  the 
surgeon  appeared  with  his  instruments.  The  afflicted  fa¬ 
ther  was  present;  exhortations  to  patience  were  delivered; 
and  every  preparation  was  complete,  when  the  astonished 
operator  for  the  first  time  perceived  that  every  symptom  of 
the  disease  had  disappeared.  All  Paris  rang  with  the  story. 
It  reached  the  ear  of  the  queen-mother.  By  her  command, 
M.  Felix,  the  principal  surgeon  to  the  king,  investigated 
and  confirmed  the  narrative.  The  royal  conscience  was 
touched.  Who  but  must  be  moved  with  such  an  attestation 
from  on  high,  of  the  innocence  of  a  monastery  divinely 
selected  as  the  theatre  of  so  great  a  miracle?  Anne  of 
Austria  recalled  her  lieutenant.  Again  the  recluses  returned 
to  their  hermitages;  the  busy  hum  of  schoolboys  was  heard 
once  more  at  Port-Royal;  and  in  his  ancient  retreat  Arnauld 
was  permitted  to  resume  his  unremitting  labours. 

Time  must  be  at  some  discount  with  any  man  who 
should  employ  it  in  adjusting  the  “balance  of  improbabili¬ 
ties”  in  such  a  case  as  this.  But  there  is  one  indisputable 
marvel  connected  with  it.  The  greatest  genius,  the  most 
profound  scholar,  and  the  most  eminent  advocate  of  that 
age,  all  possessing  the  most  ample  means  of  knowledge, 
all  carefully  investigated,  all  admitted,  and  all  defended 
with  their  pens,  the  miracle  of  the  Holy  Thorn.  Europe 
at  that  time  produced  no  three  men  more  profoundly  con¬ 
versant  with  the  laws  of  the  material  world,  with  the  laws 
of  the  human  mind,  and  with  the  municipal  law,  than  Pas¬ 
cal,  Arnauld,  and  Le  Maitre:  and  they  were  all  sincere  and 
earnest  believers.  Yet  our  Protestant  incredulity  utterly 
rejects  both  the  tale  itself  and  the  inferences  drawn  from 
it,  and  but  for  such  mighty  names,  might  yield  to  the 
temptation  of  regarding  it  as  too  contemptible  for  serious 
notice.  Why  is  this? — a  question  which  volumes  might 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


283 


be  well  employed  to  answer.  In  this  place,  a  passing  no¬ 
tice  is  all  that  can  be  given  to  it. 

Antecedently  to  their  investigation  of  the  evidence, 
Pascal,  Arnauld  and  Le  Maitre,  may  be  supposed  to  have 
reduced  their  reasonings  on  the  subject  to  the  following 
syllogism : — The  true  Church  is  distinguished  from  all 
others  by  the  perennial  possession  of  miraculous  gifts:  But 
the  Church  of  Rome  is  the  true  church.  Therefore,  when 
a  miracle  is  alleged  to  have  happened  to  her  fold,  the  pre¬ 
sumption  is  not  against,  but  in  favour  of~4he  truth  of  the 
statement;  and  therefore,  aided  by  that  presumption,  credit 
is  due  in  such  a  case  to  testimony  which  would  be  in¬ 
sufficient  to  substantiate  the  fact  under  any  other  circum¬ 
stance.  Negamus  majorem.  It  is  not  in  the  spirit  of 
paradox,  far  less  in  that  of  irreverence  or  levity,  that  we 
would  maintain  the  reverse — namely,  that  a  church,  really 
distinguished  by  the  permanent  exercise  of  miraculous 
powers,  would  presumably  be  not  a  true  church,  but  a 
false. 

Probability  is  the  expectation  of  the  recurrence  of  usual 
sequences.  Certainty  is  the  expectation  of  the  recurrence 
of  sequences  believed  to  be  invariable.  The  disappoint¬ 
ment  of  such  an  expectation  may  be  the  disclosure  of  some 
uniform  sequence  hitherto  unknown;  that  is,  of  one  of  the 
laws  of  nature,  or  it  may  be  a  miracle — that  is,  the  distur¬ 
bance  of  those  laws  by  some  power  capable  of  controlling 
them.  He  who  alleges  a  miracle,  alleges  the  existence  of 
natural  laws;  for  there  can  be  no  exception  where  there  is 
no  rule.  Now,  to  ascribe  the  laws  of  nature  to  any  power 
but  that  of  God,  is  atheism.  To  ascribe  an  habitual  in¬ 
fringement  of  these  laws  to  powers  at  once  subordinate  and 
opposed  to  the  divine,  is  consistent  alike  with  piety  and 
with  reason.  The  analogies  of  natural  and  revealed  reli¬ 
gion  not  only  permit,  but  require,  us  thus  to  judge.  For 
example;  the  moral  law  of  God  is  love.  That  law  is  ha¬ 
bitually  infringed  by  human  selfishness.  Submission  to 
the  legitimate  exercise  of  legitimate  authority,  is  a  law 
from  heaven.  That  law  is  habitually  infringed  by  human 
self-will.  That  within  the  range  of  his  powers  of  action, 
man  should  be  a  free  agent,  is  the  divine  law.  That  law, 
as  we  learn  from  the  Gospels,  was  habitually  infringed  in 
the  case  of  demoniacs.  That  the  blood  of  the  dead  should 
corrupt  and  not  liquefy;  that  houses  should  be  built  and  not 


284 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


fly:  that  diseases  should  be  cured  by  therapeutics,  or  not  at 
all,  are  all  physical  laws  of  nature — that  is,  of  God.  Those 
physical  laws,  we  are  told,  are  habitually  infringed  within 
the  fold  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Be  it  so.  But 
if  so,  what  is  the  inference?  That  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  is  the  depositary  of  divine  truth,  and  the  special 
object  of  divine  favour?— We  wot  not.  Where  such  truth 
resides,  and  such  favour  rests,  there  will  be  a  harmony, 
not  elsewhere  to  be  found,  with  the  general  laws  of  the 
divine  economy,  and  the  general  principles  of  the  divine 
government.  The  law  is  higher  than  the  anomaly.  The 
rule  is  more  worthy  than  the  exception.  That  conformity 
to  the  eternal  ordinances  of  Heaven,  whether  psychological 
or  physical,  should  indicate  the  possession  of  truth  and 
holiness  in  a  church,  is  intelligible.  That  a  systematic 
counteraction  of  any  such  ordinances  should  indicate  the 
same,  is  not  intelligible.  If  in  any  society  any  law  of  the 
divine  government  is  habitually  reversed,  the  inference 
would  seem  to  be,  that  such  a  society  is  subject  to  the  con¬ 
trol  of  some  power  opposed  to  the  divine.  Will  it  be  an¬ 
swered  that  every  disturbance  of  the  laws  of  God  must  pro¬ 
ceed  from  the  Author  of  those  laws,  and  attest  his  agency  and 
approbation?  Why  so?  His  moral  laws  are  violated  every  in¬ 
stant  by  rebel  man,  why  not  his  physicallaws  by  rebel  angels? 
Moses  and  Paul,  and  that  divine  teacher  to  whom  Pascal, 
Arnauld,  and  Le  Maitre,  bowed  their  hearts  and  desired  to 
bow  their  understandings,  all  assure  us  that  this  is  no  im¬ 
possible  supposition.  Or  will  it  be  answered  that  such 
reasonings  impugn  the  miracles  of  Christ  himself?  If  so, 
we  at  least  abandon  them  as  fallacious;  for,  sooner  should 
our  right  hand  forget  its  cunning,  than  be  employed  to 
write  one  word  having  that  tendency.  But  the  cases  are 
utterly  dissimilar.  Assume  the  reality  both  of  the  series  of 
miracles  recorded  in  the  gospels,  and  of  the  perennial  series 
of  miracles  recorded  in  the  Roman  Catholic  legends,  and 
it  is  perfectly  consistent  to  discern  in  the  one  the  seal  of 
truth,  and  in  the  other  the  impress  of  error.  Our  Redeem¬ 
er’s  miracles  blend  in  perfect  harmony,  though  not  in  ab¬ 
solute  unison,  with  those  laws,  physical  and  moral,  which 
he  established  in  the  creation,  and  fulfilled  in  the  redemp¬ 
tion  of  the  world.  In  their  occasion — in  their  object — in 
their  fulfilment  of  prophecy — in  their  attendant  doctrine — 
and  in  their  exceptional  character,  they  are  essentially  dis- 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


285 


tinguished  from  the  perennial  miracles  of  Rome.  These 
are  in  absolute  discord  with  the  laws  which  the  miracles  of 
Christ  fulfil.  If  compelled  to  believe  them  true,  we  should 
not  be  compelled  to  refer  them  to  a  divine  original.  But 
that  the  truth  of  such  stories  as  that  of  the  Holy  Thorn 
should  ever  have  commanded  the  assent  of  such  men  as 
Pascal,  Arnauld  and  Le  Maitre,  is,  after  all,  a  standing 
wonder,  and  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  remembering 
that  they  assumed  as  inevitable,  and  hailed  as  invaluable, 
an  inference  which,  as  it  seems  to  us,  is  not  to  be  drawn 
from  the  premises,  even  if  established. 

Judge  as  we  may  of  the  miraculous  attestation  to  the  in¬ 
nocence  of  Port-Royal,  which  commanded  the  assent  of 
Pascal,  sentence  is  irreversibly  passed  by  mankind  on  the 
prodigies  wrought,  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  cause, 
by  the  pen  of  that  wonder-working  controversialist.  In 
the  whole  compass  of  literature,  ancient  and  modern,  there 
is  probably  nothing  in  the  same  style  which  could  bear  a 
comparison  with  the  “Provincial  Letters.”  Their  pecu¬ 
liar  excellence  can  be  illustrated  only  by  the  force  of  con¬ 
trast;  and,  in  that  sense,  the  “Letters  of  Junius  ”  may  af¬ 
ford  the  illustration.  To  either  series  of  anonymous  satires 
must  be  ascribed  the  praise  of  exquisite  address,  and  of 
irresistible  vigour.  Each  attained  an  immediate  and  lasting 
popularity;  and  each  has  exercised  a  powerful  influence  on 
the  literature  of  succeeding  times.  But  here  all  resem¬ 
blance  ends.  No  writer  ever  earned  so  much  fame  as 
Junius,  with  so  little  claim  to  the  respect  or  gratitude  of 
his  readers.  He  embraced  no  large  principles;  he  awa¬ 
kened  no  generous  feelings;  he  scarcely  advocated  any 
great  social  interest.  He  gives  equally  little  proof  of  the 
love  of  man,  and  of  the  love  of  books.  He  contributed  no¬ 
thing  to  the  increase  of  knowledge,  and  but  seldom  minis¬ 
tered  to  blameless  delight.  His  topics  and  his  thoughts 
were  all  of  the  passing  day.  His  invective  is  merciless  and 
extravagant;  and  the  veil  of  public  spirit  is  barely  thrown 
over  his  personal  antipathies  and  inordinate  self-esteem. 
No  man  was  ever  so  greatly  indebted  to  mere  style;  yet, 
with  all  its  recommendations,  his  is  a  style  eminently 
vicious.  It  is  laboured,  pompous,  antithetical — -never  sell- 
forgetful,  never  flowing  freely,  never  in  repose.  The  ad¬ 
miration  he  extorts  is  yielded  grudgingly;  nor  is  there  any 
book  so  universally  read  which  might  become  extinct  with 


286 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


so  little  loss  to  the  world  as  “The  Letters  of  Junius.” 
Reverse  all  this,  and  you  have  the  characteristics  of  the 
“Provincial  Letters.”  Their  language  is  but  the  trans¬ 
parent,  elastic,  unobtrusive  medium  of  thought.  It  moves 
with  such  quiet  gracefulness  as  entirely  to  escape  attention, 
until  the  matchless  perspicacity  of  discussions,  so  incom¬ 
prehensible  under  any  management  but  his,  forces  on  the 
mind  an  inquiry  into  the  causes  of  so  welcome  a  pheno¬ 
menon.  Pascal’s  wit,  even  when  most  formidable,  is  so 
tempered  by  kindness,  as  to  show  that  the  infliction  of 
pain,  however  salutary,  was  a  reluctant  tribute  to  his  su¬ 
preme  love  of  truth.  His  playfulness  is  like  the  laugh  of 
childhood — the  buoyancy  of  a  heart  which  has  no  burden 
to  throw  off,  and  is  gay  without  an  effort.  His  indignation 
is  never  morose,  vindictive,  or  supercilious:  it  is  but  phi¬ 
lanthropy  kindling  into  righteous  anger  and  generous  re¬ 
sentment,  and  imparting  to  them  a  tone  of  awful  majesty. 
The  unostentatious  master  of  all  learning,  he  finds  recrea¬ 
tion  in  toils  which  would  paralyze  an  ordinary  under¬ 
standing;  yet  so  sublimated  is  that  learning  with  the  spirit 
of  philosophy,  as  to  make  him  heedless  of  whatever  is 
trivial,  transient,  and  minute,  except  as  it  suggests  or  leads 
to  what  is  comprehensive  and  eternal.  But  the  canons  of 
mere  literary  criticism  were  never  designed  to  measure  that 
which  constitutes  the  peculiar  greatness  of  the  author  of 
the  “Provincial  Letters.”  His  own  claim  was  to  be  tried 
by  his  peers — by  those,  who  in  common  with  him,  pos¬ 
sess  a  mental  vision  purified  by  contemplating  that  light 
in  which  is  no  darkness  at  all,  and  affections  enlarged  by  a 
benevolence  which,  having  its  springs  in  heaven,  has  no 
limits  to  its  diffusion  on  earth.  Among  his  ascetic  bre¬ 
thren  in  the  valley  of  Port-Royal,  he  himself  recognised 
the  meet,  if  not  the  impartial  judges  of  his  labours.  They 
hailed  with  transport  an  ally,  who,  to  their  own  sanctity  of 
manners,  and  to  more  than  their  own  genius,  added  popular 
arts  to  which  they  could  make  no  pretension.  Perhaps 
they  were  taught  by  the  excellent  M.  Singlin  to  regard  and 
censure  such  exultation  as  merely  human.  That  great  spi¬ 
ritual  anatomist  probably  rebuked  and  punished  the  glee 
which  could  not  but  agitate  the  innermost  folds  of  Arnauld’s 
heart,  as  he  read  his  apologist’s  exquisite  analysis  of  the 
Pouvoir  Prochain ,  and  of  the  Graces  Snffisantes  qui  ne 
sont  pas  efficaces.  For  history  records  the  misgivings  of 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


287 


Mademoiselle  Pascal,  how  far  M.  Singlin  would  put  up  with 
the  indomitable  gaiety  which  would  still  chequer  with  some 
gleams  of  mirth  her  brother’s  cell  at  Les  Granges,  even  after 
his  preternatural  ingenuity  had  been  exhausted  in  rendering 
it  the  most  desolate  and  cheerless  of  human  abodes. 

Whatever  may  have  been  his  treatment  of  his  illustrious 
penitents,  the  good  man  was  not  long  permitted  to  guide 
them  through  their  weary  pilgrimage.  The  respite  ob¬ 
tained  for  Port-Royal  by  the  Holy  Thorn  and  the  “Pro¬ 
vincial  Letters,”  expired  with  the  death  of  Mazarin  and 
with  the  authority  of  the  Queen-mother.  Louis  began,  as 
he  believed,  to  act  for  himself — a  vain  attempt  for  a  man 
who  could  never  think  for  himself.  The  genius,  such  as  it 
was,  of  the  dead  minister,  had  still  the  mastery  over  the 
inferior  mind  of  the  surviving  monarch.  Louis  had  been 
taught  by  the  Cardinal  to  fear  and  to  hate  De  Retz,  Jan¬ 
senism,  and  Port-Royal.  Poor  Singlin  was  therefore  driven 
away,  and  in  due  time  consigned  to  the  Bastille.  At  the 
bidding  of  the  King,  a  synod  of  the  clergy  of  France  drew 
up  an  anti-Jansenist  test,  to  be  taken  by  all  ecclesiastics,  and 
by  all  religious  communities,  male  and  female;  fortified,  of 
course,  by  effective  penalties.  They  were  all  required  to 
subscribe  their  names  to  a  declaration  that  the  “  five  pro¬ 
positions,”  in  their  heretical  sense,  were  to  be  found  in  the 
Augustinus,  with  no  exception  in  favour  of  those  who  had 
never  seen  the  book,  or  of  those  who  could  not  read  Latin. 
Nor  was  this  an  ineffectual  menace.  Blow  after  blow  fell  on 
those  who  refused,  and  even  on  those  who  were  expected 
to  refuse,  thus  to  condemn  the  Bishop  of  Ypres.  Port- 
Royal  was  foremost  among  such  obdurate  recusants.  Their 
schools,  male  and  female,  were  dispersed.  Arnauld  and 
the  other  recluses  were  banished  from  the  valley.  The 
admission  of  novices  and  postulantes  was  interdicted  to  the 
abbess ;  and  her  ancient  monastery  was  threatened  with 
suppression  as  contumacious  and  heretical. 

Angelique  Arnauld  was  now  sinking  under  the  pressure 
of  infirmity  and  of  old  age.  Half  a  century  had  elapsed 
since  the  commencement  of  her  reforms,  and  her  tale  of 
threescore  years  and  ten  had  been  fully  told;  but  ere  she 
yielded  her  soul  to  him  who  gave  it,  she  rose  from  her 
dying  bed  to  make  one  more  effort  for  the  preservation  of 
the  house,  so  long  devoted,  under  her  guidance,  to  works  of 
mercy  and  to  exercises  of  penitence  and  prayer.  Surrounded 


288 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


by  a  throng  of  weeping  children,  and  by  her  eldest  asso¬ 
ciates  maintaining  their  wonted  composure,  she,  for  the  last 
time,  quitted  Port-Royal  des  Champs,  giving  and  receiving 
benedictions,  and  went  to  die  at  the  convent  of  Port-Royal 
de  Paris.  She  found  the  gates  guarded,  and  the  court-yards 
filled  by  a  troop  of  archers,  the  executioners  of  the  royal 
mandate  for  expelling  the  scholars,  novices,  postulantes, 
and  other  unprofessed  inmates  of  the  house.  During  eight 
successive  days,  one  after  another  of  these  helpless  women 
was  torn  from  the  place  around  which  their  affections  had 
twined;  and  from  the  arms  of  the  dying  mother,  whom  they 
loved  with  the  tenderness  of  children,  and  regarded  with 
more  than  filial  reverence.  Seventy-five  persons  were  thus 
successively  separated  from  her,  as  from  hour  to  hour  she 
descended  to  the  tomb,  under  bodily  and  mental  sufferings 
described  with  fearful  minuteness  in  the  obituaries  of  Port- 
Royal.  “  At  length  our  good  Lord  has  seen  fit  to  deprive 
us  of  all.  Fathers,  sisters,  disciples,  children — all  are  gone. 
Blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord.”  Such  was  her  announce¬ 
ment  to  Madame  de  Sevigne  of  the  emptying  of  the  first 
vial  of  Kingly  wrath.  To  the  Queen-mother  she  addressed 
herself  in  a  loftier,  though  not  in  a  less  gentle  tone.  At 
each  momentary  remission  of  her  agonies,  she  dictated 
to  Anne  of  Austria  a  letter,  long  and  justly  celebrated  as  a 
model  of  epistolary  eloquence.  It  has  no  trace  of  debility, 
still  less  of  resentment.  Her  defence  is  as  clear  and  as 
collected,  as  though,  in  the  fulness  of  health,  she  had  been 
conducting  the  cause  of  another.  Without  a  reproach  or  a 
murmur,  she  exposes  the  wrongs  of  her  sisterhood,  and  the 
error  of  her  persecutors.  For  herself  she  asks  no  sympa¬ 
thy;  but,  from  the  verge  of  the  world  she  had  so  long  re¬ 
nounced,  and  was  now  about  to  quit  for  ever,  she  invokes 
from  the  depositaries  of  worldly  power,  the  justice  they 
owed  to  man,  and  the  submission  due  to  the  ordinances  of 
heaven.  “Now,  my  earthly  business  is  done!”  was  her 
grateful  exclamation  as  this  letter  was  closed ;  and  then 
commenced  a  mental  and  bodily  strife,  recorded,  perhaps, 
but  too  faithfully  by  her  biographers.  These  pages,  at  least, 
are  no  fit  place  for  the  delineation  of  a  scene  over  which  the 
sternest  spectator  must  have  wept,  and  the  most  hardened 
must  have  prayed  fervently  for  the  sufferer  and  for  himself. 
From  the  dark  close  of  a  life  so  holy  and  so  blameless,  and 
from  the  hope,  and  peace,  and  joy,  which  at  length  cast 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


289 


over  her  departing  spirit  some  radiance  from  that  better 
state  on  the  confines  of  which  she  stood,  lessons  may  be 
drawn  which  we  have  no  commission  to  teach,  and  which 
are  perhaps  best  learned  without  the  intervention  of  any 
human  teacher.  Yet,  even  in  Port-Royal  itself,  there  were 
not  wanting  some  to  whom  this  admonition  of  the  vanity 
of  human  things  was  addressed  in  vain. 

Among  that  venerable  society,  the  Soeur  Flavie  Passart 
was  unrivalled  in  the  severity  of  her  self-discipline,  and  the 
splendour  of  her  superhuman  gifts.  As  often  as  illness 
confined  her  to  her  bed,  so  often  did  a  miracle  restore  her. 
The  dead  returned  to  her  with  messages  from  the  other 
world.  No  saint  in  the  calendar  withheld  his  powerful 
influence  in  the  court  of  heaven  when  she  invoked  it. 
Like  many  wiser  folks,  Soeur  Flavie  discovered  at  last,  and 
doubtless  to  her  own  surprise,  that  she  had  become  (there 
are  none  but  masculine  terms  to  express  it,)  a  liar  and  a 
knave.  The  same  discovery  was  opportunely  made  by  her 
associates,  and  arrested  her  progress  to  the  elective  dignities 
of  the  abbey.  A  penitent  confession  of  her  Jansenist  errors, 
a  denunciation  of  the  more  eminent  ladies  of  Port-Royal  as 
her  seducers,  and  a  retractation  of  her  heretical  belief  in  the 
innocence  of  Jansenius,  might,  however,  still  pave  her  way 
to  the  abbatial  throne.  So  judged  the  Soeur  Flavie,  and  so 
decided  M.  Perifixe,  the  then  archbishop  of  Paris.  She 
merely  asked  the  imprisonment  of  twenty-six  of  her  rivals. 
He  cheerfully  accorded  so  reasonable  a  boon.  Repairing 
in  pontifical  state  to  the  Parisian  monastery,  he  again  ten¬ 
dered  the  anti-Jansenist  test.  Angelique  was  gone;  but  her 
spirit  and  her  constancy  survived.  The  simple-hearted 
nuns  thought  that  it  would  be  a  mere  falsehood  to  attest 
the  existence  of  “  five  propositions  ”  in  a  book  which  they 
had  never  seen,  and  could  not  read;  and  truth,  they  knew, 
was  the  command  of  God,  let  Pope,  Cardinal,  or  Archbishop, 
say  what  they  would  to  the  contrary.  Perifixe  interdicted 
their  admission  to  the  holy  sacrament.  “Well,  my  lord,” 
they  replied,  “there  is  in  heaven  a  Judge  who  reads  the 
heart,  and  to  him  we  commend  our  cause.”  “Ay,  ay,” 
rejoined  the  exemplary  prelate,  “  when  we  get  to  heaven 
it  will  be  time  enough  to  consider  that,  and  see  how  things 
go  there.” 

Eight  days  elapsed;  and  still  no  change  of  purpose,  no 
subscription  to  the  test.  Preceded  by  his  crosier,  the  mi- 


290 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tre  on  his  brows,  his  train  borne  by  ecclesiastics,  and  fol¬ 
lowed  by  a  long  line  of  archers,  the  Archbishop  re-appeared. 
Much  he  discoursed  respecting  his  own  mildness,  and  much 
of  the  obduracy  of  the  nuns.  In  proof  of  both,  twenty-three 
of  their  number  were  conveyed  to  separate  places  of  con¬ 
finement.  But  the  fruits  of  her  treachery  were  not  reaped 
by  the  Soeur  Flavie.  By  the  influence  of  the  Archbishop, 
the  Soeur  Dorothee  Perdreau  was  elected  abbess.  That 
lady  established  her  residence  at  Paris;  she  effected  a  final 
separation  of  the  two  monasteries;  and  gave  entertainments 
at  the  Parisian  convent  which  might  vie  with  the  most  bril¬ 
liant  of  any  which  formed  the  boast  of  the  neighbouring 
hotels.  For  ten  months  her  exiled  sisters  remained  in  pri¬ 
son.  Perifixe  then  ordered  their  return  to  Port-Royal  des 
Champs,  there  to  be  excluded  from  the  sacraments  of  the 
church,  and  to  die  unanointed  and  unannealed.  The  re¬ 
cluses  of  the  valley  were  to  be  seen  there  no  more.  They 
lived  in  hiding-places,  or  pined  away  in  dungeons.  Sing- 
lin  died  of  extremity  of  suffering  in  the  Bastille.  It  must 
be  admitted,  that  if  the  existence  of  the  “five  propositions” 
in  the  Augustinus  was  not  verified  by  the  attestation  of  a 
score  or  two  of  old  ladies,  Louis  and  his  clergy  have  not 
to  bear  the  responsibility  of  so  great  a  misfortune  to  the 
church. 

Twelve  years  before,  the  miracle  of  the  Holy  Thorn  and 
the  genius  of  Pascal  had  rescued  Port-Royal  from  impend¬ 
ing  destruction.  A  person  scarcely  less  unlike  the  common 
herd  of  mortals  than  the  author  of  the  “  Provincial  Letters,” 
and  whose  elevation  had  been  owing  to  events  which  some 
may  think  more  miraculous  than  the  cure  of  Pascal’s  niece, 
now  interposed  in  their  behalf,  and  with  not  inferior  success. 

Anne  Genevieve  de  Bourbon  was  born  in  the  year  1619, 
in  the  castle  of  Vincennes,  where  her  father,  Henry,  Prince 
of  Orleans,  was  then  confined.  The  misfortunes  of  her 
family,  and  especially  the  execution  of  the  Constable  Mont¬ 
morency,  her  maternal  uncle,  had  predisposed  in  early 
youth,  to  serious  thought,  a  mind  distinguished  to  the  last 
by  an  insatiable  craving  for  strong  emotions.  To  renounce 
the  world,  and  to  take  the  veil  among  the  sisterhood  of 
Carmelites  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Jaques,  were  the  earliest 
of  the  projects  she  had  formed  to  baffle  the  foul  fiend  ennui. 
A  counter-project,  devised  by  her  mother,  was,  that  the 
young  princess  should  present  herself  at  a  court  ball.  Ma- 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


291 


ternal  authority,  perhaps  inclination,  on  the  one  side,  and 
conscientious  scruples  on  the  other,  balanced  and  distressed 
the  spirit  of  the  high-born  maiden.  She  betook  herself  for 
guidance  to  the  Faubourg  St.  Jaques.  A  council  on  the 
arduous  question  was  held  with  all  the  form,  conventual 
and  theatrical,  which  the  statutes  of  the  order  and  the  fancy 
of  the  nuns  required  or  suggested.  As  presidents,  sat  two 
of  their  number,  one  impersonating  the  grace  of  Penitence, 
the  other  the  virtue  of  Discretion.  From  the  judgment-seat 
so  occupied,  went  forth  the  sentence  that  Anne  Genevieve 
de  Bourbon  should  attend  the  ball,  and  should  surrender 
herself  “de  bonne  foi  ”  to  all  the  dresses  and  ornaments 
prepared  for  her;  but  that  in  immediate  contact  with  her 
person  she  should  be  armed  with  the  penitential  girdle, 
commonly  called  a  cilice.  Above  the  talisman  which  thus 
encircled  that  young  and  lovely  form,  glowed  the  bright 
panoply  of  the  marchande  des  modes.  Beneath  it  throbbed 
a  heart  responsive  in  every  pulse  to  the  new  intoxication. 
Penitence  and  Discretion  took  their  flight,  no  more  to  re¬ 
turn  till,  after  the  lapse  of  many  a  chequered  year,  the  cilice 
was  again  bound  over  a  heart,  then,  alas!  aching  with  re¬ 
morse,  and  bowed  down  with  the  contrite  retrospect  of 
many  a  crime  and  many  a  folly.  At  the  Hotel  de  Ram- 
bouillet,  she  was  initiated,  with  her  brother,  afterwards  “  the 
great  Conde,”  into  the  Parisian  mystery  of  throwing  over 
the  cold  hard  lineaments  of  downright  selfishness,  the  fine- 
woven  draperies  of  polite  literature,  of  sentimentality,  and 
of  taste.  She  had  scarcely  read  any  books;  but  she  could 
discourse  eloquently  on  all.  Mistress  of  the  histrionic  art, 
all  words  fell  bevvitchingly  from  a  voice  with  which  every 
look,  and  gesture,  and  attitude,  combined  in  graceful  har¬ 
mony.  De  Retz  notices  the  exquisite  effect  of  the  sudden 
bursts  of  gaiety  which  would  at  times  dispel  her  habitual, 
but  not  inexpressive  languor.  Sarazin  and  Voiture  were 
proud  to  receive  their  laurels  from  her  hands,  or  to  beg 
them  at  her  feet.  Statesmen  and  generals  sought  or  seemed 
to  seek,  her  counsels.  Even  her  mitred  correspondents 
infused  into  their  pastoral  admonitions  a  delicacy  and  a  glow 
of  language,  which  reveal  alike  her  skill  to  fascinate,  and 
their  desire  to  please. 

Vows  of  celibacy  no  longer  promised  an  escape  from 
lassitude.  At  the  age  of  twenty-three,  she  gave  her  hand 
to  Henry  D’Orleans,  Due  de  Longueviile,  who  had  already 


292  Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

numbered  forty-seven  years.  The  Duke  repaired  as  pleni¬ 
potentiary  to  the  conferences  at  Munster.  The  Duchess 
remained  at  Paris,  the  idol  of  the  court.  Unexplored,  at 
least  by  us,  be  the  scandalous  chronicle  of  a  scandalous 
age.  She  rejoined  him  in  time  to  shelter,  if  not  entirely 
to  save  her  reputation.  As  she  floated  down  the  Meuse  in 
a  royal  progress,  (for  such  it  really  was,)  the  sister  of 
Conde  was  received  with  more  than  royal  honours.  Troops 
lined  the  banks;  fortresses  poured  forth  their  garrisons  to 
welcome  her  approach;  the  keys  of  Namur,  then  held  by 
Spain,  were  laid  at  her  feet;  complimentary  harangues 
hailed  her  arrival  at  Liege,  Maestricht,  and  Ruremonde; 
and  amidst  the  roar  of  cannon,  and  the  acclamations  of  ten 
thousand  voices,  the  triumphant  beauty  was  restored  to  the 
arms  of  her  husband.  At  Munster  she  exhibited  the  state 
and  splendour  of  a  crowned  head.  But  her  heart  was  de¬ 
pressed  by  ennui,  if  not  agitated  by  more  guilty  emotions. 
Tours  were  undertaken,  palaces  built,  wars  of  etiquette 
were  successfully  waged  with  rival  princesses;  diplomatic 
intrigues  twisted  and  untwisted;  but  gloom  still  settled  in 
the  spirits  of  her  to  whose  diversion  all  other  minds  were 
ministering.  She  returned  to  Paris.  Conde  had  exalted 
the  glories  of  her  house.  Mazarin  got  up  an  Italian  opera 
for  her  amusement.  Benserade  and  Voiture  referred  to  her 
award  the  question  then  agitating  the  whole  Parisian  world, 
of  the  comparative  excellence  of  their  rival  sonnets.  She 
became  a  mother.  On  every  side  the  tedium  of  existence 
was  assailed  by  new  excitement;  but  melancholy  still 
brooded  over  her.  Relief  was,  however,  at  hand.  The 
dissensions,  the  wars,  the  intrigues  of  the  Fronde ,  filled 
the  void  which  nothing  else  could  fill.  Her  share  in  that 
mad  revel  is  known  to  all  the  readers  of  De  Retz,  La 
Rochefoucalt,  De  Monspensier,  and  De  Motteville.  Her 
younger  brother,  the  Prince  de  Conti,  was  but  a  puppet  in 
Iter  hands.  With  Conde,  she  quarrelled  one  day,  and 
made  it  up  the  next.  De  Retz  was  alternately  her  ruler 
and  her  dupe.  Marsaillac  alone  acquired  a  lasting  influ¬ 
ence  over  her  mind.  He  flattered,  amused,  animated,  and 
governed  her,  to  whose  government  alone  the  factious  and 
the  frivolous  were  alike  willing  to  bow.  With  her  infant 
in  her  arms,  she  appeared  on  the  balcony,  at  the  Hotel  de 
Ville,  “beautiful,”  says  De  Retz,  “with  her  dress  appa¬ 
rently,  but  not  really,  neglected,  while  at  the  Greve,  from 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


293 


the  pavement  to  the  tiles,  was  a  countless  multitude  of 
men  shouting  with  transport,  and  women  shedding  tears 
of  tenderness.”  Never  did  mob-idolatry  assume  a  more 
bewitching  aspect.  Hushed  into  affectionate  silence  were 
the  harsh  voices  of  the  many-headed  monster,  as  the  peer¬ 
less  dame  gave  birth  to  “Charles  Paris,”  her  second  son. 
Crowded  even  was  that  sick-chamber  with  black-robed 
counsellors,  and  plumed  officers,  soliciting  her  commands 
for  the  defence  of  the  blockaded  capital.  Peace  came,  and 
she  met  almost  on  equal  terms  the  haughty  widow  and 
mother  of  the  kings  of  France.  For  her  brother  and  her 
husband,  she  demanded  and  obtained  the  government  of 
provinces;  for  herself  a  state  ball  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
with  the  presence  of  the  queen-mother  to  grace  her  tri¬ 
umph;  for  Marsaillac  the  entree  at  the  Louvre  in  his  car¬ 
riage;  for  his  wife  a  tabouret.  There  are  limits  to  human 
endurance.  Against  the  entree  and  the  tabouret  the  whole 
nobility  of  France  awoke  in  generous  resentment.  Astraea 
once  more  took  her  flight.  Conde,  Conti,  and  poor  De 
Longueville  himself,  were  conducted  to  Vincennes ;  our 
heroine  fled  to  Normandy,  Besieged  in  the  castle  of  Di¬ 
eppe,  she  escaped  on  foot,  and,  after  a  march  of  some 
leagues  along  the  coast,  reached  a  fishing-boat,  which  lay 
at  anchor  there,  awaiting  her  arrival.  A  storm  was  raging; 
but,  in  defiance  of  all  remonstrances,  she  resolved  to  em¬ 
bark.  In  an  instant  she  was  struggling  for  life  in  the  water. 
Rescued  with  difficulty,  but  nothing  daunted,  she  mounted 
behind  a  horseman,  and  for  fifteen  days  evaded  the  pursuit 
of  her  enemies,  in  mean  and  desolate  hiding-places.  At 
length,  reaching  Havre,  an  English  vessel  conveyed  her  to 
Rotterdam.  From  that  disastrous  eclipse,  she  emerged 
with  undiminished  splendour.  From  Stenay,  Turenne  ad¬ 
vanced  to  meet  her  at  the  head  of  all  his  forces.  She  be¬ 
came  a  party  with  him  to  the  convention  by  which  the 
King  of  Spain  bound  himself  to  maintain  the  war  with 
France  till  the  liberation  of  the  three  captive  princes;  and 
sixty  thousand  crowns  were  promised  for  the  support  of 
the  table  and  equipages  of  Turenne  and  the  Princesse  de 
Longueville.  That  more  tender  bonds  than  those  of  war 
and  treason  did  not  unite  them,  is  ascribed  by  her  biogra¬ 
phers  to  her  preference  for  one  La  Moussaye,  the  com¬ 
mandant  of  Stenay.  There  she  braved  the  denunciations 
of  her  sovereign,  opposing  one  manifesto  to  another,  and 

25* 


294 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


adding  to  her  other  glories  the  praise  of  diplomatic  elo¬ 
quence.  Again  the  centre  of  all  intrigue,  the  delirium, 
whether  ambitious  or  voluptuous,  of  her  heart,  yielded  for 
awhile  (and  where  beats  the  heart  which  is  not  enigmati¬ 
cal?)  to  remembrances,  at  once  bitter  and  soothing,  of  the 
Carmelites  of  St.  Jaques,  with  whom,  in  days  of  youth 
and  innocency,  she  had  joined  in  far  different  aspirations. 
But  in  the  phantasmagoria  at  Paris,  the  scenes  are  again 
shifted.  The  Parliaments  remonstrate,  the  Princes  are 
*  enlarged,  the  Cardinal  exiled,  and  a  royal  declaration  at¬ 
tests  the  innocence  of  Mademoiselle  de  Longueville,  “  Vous 
n’etes  plus  criminelle  si  ce  n’est  de  lese  amours,”  was  the 
greeting  on  this  occasion  of  her  favourite  Sarazin.  She 
rewarded  the  poet  with  an  embassy  to  the  Spanish  govern¬ 
ment;  for  the  Duchess  had  now  undertaken  a  negotiation 
for  peace  between  the  two  crowns.  Her  second  triumph, 
however,  was  still  incomplete.  She  returned  in  all  the 
pomp  of  a  conqueror  to  Paris,  and  once  more  met  on  equal 
terms  the  majesty  of  France. 

It  may  reasonably  be  doubted  whether  there  exists  at 
this  day  one  human  being  who  has  found  leisure  and  incli¬ 
nation  to  study,  with  exact  attention,  the  history  of  the 
wars  of  the  “Fronde.”  But  that  they  disturbed  the  peace, 
and  postponed  the  rising  greatness  of  a  mighty  nation, 
they  would  have  as  little  to  commend  them  to  serious  re¬ 
gard,  as  the  cabals  one  may  suppose  to  distract  the  fair 
council  presiding  over  the  internal  economy  of  Almacks. 
To  assert,  during  the  weakness  of  a  long  minority,  some 
popular  rights  not  otherwise  to  be  maintained,  and  to  re¬ 
store  the  greater  nobility  to  the  powers  of  which  Richelieu 
had  dispossessed  them,  were  indeed  motives  which  gave 
some  show  of  dignity  to  the  first  movements  of  the  Fron- 
deurs;  but  meaner  passions,  more  frivolous  questions,  inte¬ 
rests  more  nakedly  selfish,  or  in  themselves  more  contempti¬ 
ble,  never  before  or  since  roused  a  people  to  war,  or  formed 
a  pretext  for  rebellion.  Cardinals,  Judges,  Monarchs,  Prin¬ 
cesses,  Courtiers,  and  Generals,  whirl  before  the  eye  in 
that  giddy  maze — intriguing,  lying,  jesting,  imprisoning, 
and  killing,  as  though  Bacchus,  Momus,  and  Moloch,  had 
for  awhile  usurped  a  joint  and  absolute  dominion  over  the 
distracted  land.  Among  the  figurantes  in  this  dance  of 
death,  none  is  more  conspicuous  than  the  Duchesse  de 
Longueville.  In  the  third  and  last  of  these  preposterous 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


295 


wars,  the  royal  authority  triumphed,  and  her  star  declined; 
but  it  now  set  to  rise  again  in  a  new  and  far  purer  radiance. 
Like  the  wisest  of  the  sons  of  men,  she  had  applied  her 
heart  to  see  if  there  was  any  good  thing  under  the  sun ;  and, 
like  him,  she  returned  with  a  spirit  oppressed  by  the  hope¬ 
less  pursuit,  and  proclaiming  that  all  is  vanity.  “I  have 
no  wish  so  ardent”  (such  is  her  confession  to  the  Prioress 
of  the  Carmelites)  “as  to  see  this  war  at  an  end,  that,  for 
the  rest  of  my  days,  I  may  dwell  with  you,  and  apart  from 
all  the  world  besides.  Till  peace  is  concluded,  I  may  not 
do  so.  My  life  seems  to  have  been  given  me  but  to  prove 
how  bitter  and  how  oppressive  are  the  sorrows  of  this 
mortal  existence.  My  attachments  to  it  are  broken,  or 
rather  crushed.  Write  to  me  often,  and  confirm  the  loath¬ 
ing  I  feel  for  this  sublunary  state.” 

It  was  a  weary  way  which  the  returning  penitent  had  to 
retrace.  Now  rising  towards  the  heaven  to  which  she 
aspired,  her  fainting  spirit  would  again  sink  down  to  the 
earth  she  had  too  much  loved.  Long  and  arduous  was  the 
struggle — tardy,  and  to  the  last  precarious,  the  conquest. 
But  the  conquest  was  achieved.  Gainsay  it  who  will,  the 
spirit  of  man  is  the  not  unfrequent,  though  the  hidden  scene 
of  revolutions,  as  real  as  that  which  from  the  seed  corrupt¬ 
ing  in  the  soil  beneath  us,  draws  forth  the  petals,  diffusing 
on  every  side  their  fragrance,  and  reflecting  in  every  va¬ 
ried  hue  the  light  of  heaven.  He  who,  with  disappointed 
hopes,  and  the  satiety  of  all  the  pleasures  which  earth  has 
to  offer,  seeks  refuge  in  that  sanctuary  which  in  the  heat 
and  confidence  of  youth  he  had  despised,  may  well  expect 
that  human  judges  will  note  the  change  with  incredulity  or 
derision:  nor,  perhaps,  has  he  much  right  to  complain. 
There  ever  must  be  some  ground  for  others  to  doubt  whe¬ 
ther  the  seeming  love  of  long-neglected  virtues  be  more 
than  a  real  distaste  for  long-practised  vices.  That  the 
roaee  should  pass  into  the  ennuyee ,  and  the  ennuyee  into 
the  devotee ,  may  appear  as  natural  as  that  the  worm  should 
become  a  chrysalis,  and  the  chrysalis  a  butterfly.  To  the 
wits  be  their  jests,  and  to  the  mockers  their  gibes.  To 
those  who  can  feel  for  some  of  the  deepest  agonies  of  our 
common  nature,  such  jests  will  be  at  least  less  welcome 
than  the  belief  that,  when  innocence  is  gone,  all  is  not  lost; 
and  the  conviction,  that  over  the  soul  blighted  and  depraved 
by  criminal  indulgence,  may  still  be  effectually  brooding 


296 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


an  influence  more  gentle  than  a  mother’s  love,  and  mightier 
than  all  the  confederate  powers  of  darkness  and  of  guilt. 
Few  readers  of  the  later  correspondence  of  the  Duchess  of 
Longueville,  will  doubt  that  the  change  in  her  character 
was  the  result  of  such  a  renovating  energy.  At  the  age  of 
thirty-four  she  finally  retired  from  the  cabals  in  which  she 
had  borne  so  conspicuous  a  part.  Conde  had  now  taken 
up  arms  against  her  native  country,  and  Turenne  com¬ 
manded  her  armies.  The  Duchess  mourned  alike  the  suc¬ 
cess  and  the  reverses  of  her  brother.  De  Longueville,  a 
kind-hearted  man,  hailed  with  unabated  tenderness  her  re¬ 
turn  to  the  paths  of  wisdom  and  peace.  She  watched  with 
true  congenial  care  over  his  declining  years,  and  even  ex¬ 
tended  her  kindness  to  one  of  his  illegitimate  daughters. 

Touched  by  her  altered  conduct,  the  King  and  the 
Queen’s  mother  admitted  her  not  merely  to  their  favour, 
but  to  a  high  place  in  their  regard;  nor  are  there  many  in¬ 
cidents  in  the  life  of  Louis  so  amiable,  as  the  affectionate 
gentleness  of  his  demeanour  to  this  once  dangerous  but 
now  self-humbled  enemy.  On  the  death  of  her  husband 
she  expended  immense  sums  in  the  attempt  to  repair,  in 
some  degree,  the  calamities  which  the  war  of  the  Princes 
had  inflicted  on  the  peasantry.  In  a  single  year  she  re¬ 
stored  to  freedom,  at  her  own  expense,  nine  hundred  per¬ 
sons  imprisoned  for  debt;  and  had  a  list  of  no  less  than  four 
thousand  prisoners  subsisting  altogether  on  her  bounty. 
The  austere  penances  which  at  least  attested  her  sincerity, 
were  combined  on  all  becoming  occasions  with  the  princely 
magnificence  due  to  her  exalted  station.  Her  eldest  son, 
the  Comte  Du  Dunois,  a  feeble-minded  youth,  turned  Je¬ 
suit, .took  orders,  escaped  to  Rome,  and  was  placed  under 
permanent  restraint.  The  Comte  St.  Paul,  her  only  other 
child,  was  a  wild  profligate.  He  enjoyed  ecclesiastical 
benefices  of  the  annual  value  of  50,000  crowns,  which  she 
compelled  him  to  resign  unconditionally  to  the  disposal  of 
the  King.  Louis  revered  and  applauded  such  unwonted 
disinterestedness,  and  exerted  all  the  magic  of  his  flattery 
to  win  her  back  again  to  the  court  and  to  the  world.  But 
she  had  learned  a  salutary  lesson  of  self-distrust.  In  the 
valley  of  Port-Royal  she  built  a  modest  residence,  where 
she  found  repose,  if  not  serenity;  and  soothed  with  humble 
hopes  a  spirit  too  deeply  contrite  to  be  visited  by  more 
buoyant  feelings.  Her  own  hand  has  traced  the  history  of 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


297 


her  declining  years;  nor  have  the  most  pathetic  preachers 
of  that  age  of  pulpit  eloquence  bequeathed  to  us  a  more 
impressive  admonition.  Whoever  would  learn  what  are 
the  woes  of  ministering,  by  reckless  self-indulgence,  to 
the  morbid  cravings  of  the  heart  for  excitement;  or  how 
revolting  is  the  late  return  to  more  tranquil  pursuits;  or 
how  gloomy  is  the  shadow  which  criminal  passions,  even 
when  exercised,  will  yet  cast  over  the  soul  they  have  long 
possessed;  or  how,  through  that  gloom,  a  light  pure  as  its 
divine  original,  may  dawn  over  the  benighted  mind  with 
still  expanding  warmth  and  brightness — should  study  the 
Letters  and  the  Confessions  of  Anne  Genevieve,  Duchesse 
de  Longueville. 

To  explain  what  was  the  task  she  undertook,  we  must 
return  a  little  in  our  former  steps.  % 

Such,  and  so  conversant  with  the  ways  of  the  world 
was  the  diplomatist  who  at  length  appeared  for  the  rescue 
of  the  Ladies  of  Port-Royal.  No  less  skilful  hand  could 
have  unravelled  the  folds  in  which  the  subject  had  been 
wrapped  by  intrigue  and  bigotry. 

The  original  anti-Jansenist  test  had  been  promulgated 
by  a  Synod  of  the  clergy  of  France,  adopted  by  the  Sor- 
bonne,  and  enforced  by  Louis.  To  the  remonstrances  of 
the  nuns  against  being  required  to  attest  by  their  signatures 
a  matter  of  fact  of  which  they  had,  and  could  have  no  know¬ 
ledge,  the  King  had  answered  only  by  reiterating  the  de¬ 
mand  for  a  “  pure  and  simple”  subscription.  “  His  Ma¬ 
jesty,”  observed  the  Princess  de  Guemene,  “is  supreme. 
He  can  make  princes  of  the  blood,  bishops  and  archbishops. 
Why  not  martyrs  also?”  It  was  a  branch  of  the  royal  pre¬ 
rogative  which  he  was  nothing  loath  to  exercise.  De  Retz 
abdicated  the  See  of  Paris,  and  was  succeeded  by  De  Mar- 
ca,  the  author  of  the  Formulary.  Availing  themselves  of 
so  happy  an  occasion,  the  Jesuits  at  Clermont  drew  up  a 
thesis,  in  which  was  propounded,  for  the  acceptance  of  the 
faithful,  the  naked  dogma  of  Papal  infallibility,  not  only 
on  points  of  doctrine  but  as  to  mere  matters  of  fact.  Ar- 
nauld  and  his  friends  protested.  Their  protest  was  refuted 
by  the  hand  and  the  torch  of  one  of  the  great  polemics  of 
that  age — the  public  executioner.  De  Marca  did  not  live 
long;  and  his  death  brought  with  it  a  truce  in  this  holy 
war.  His  successor  in  the  see  of  Paris,  M.  de  Perifixe, 
resumed  it,  but  with  greater  subtleiy.  He  taught  that  it 


298 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


was  enough  if  a  matter  of  fact,  asserted  by  the  Pope,  were 
believed  not  d'une  fox  divine ,  but  d'une  foi  humaine. 
Whether,  in  the  Virgilian  elysium,  the  recompense  award¬ 
ed  to  the  inventors  of  useful  arts  awaits  the  authors  of  use¬ 
ful  distinctions  has  not  been  revealed  to  us;  but  if  so,  De 
Perifixe  may  there  have  found  his  recompense.  On  earth  it 
was  his  hard  fate  to  be  refuted  by  Nicole,  to  be  laughed  at  by 
the  Parisians,  and  to  be  opposed  by  the  ladies  of  Port-Royal. 
They  had  no  faith,  divine  or  human,  and  they  would  pro¬ 
fess  none,  as  to  the  contents  of  a  large  folio  written  in  a  lan¬ 
guage  of  which  they  were  entirely  ignorant.  “  Pure  as 
angels,”  said  the  incensed  Archbishop;  “  they  are  proud  as 
devils!”  How  he  punished  their  pride  has  already  been 
recorded. 

When  a  great  dignitary  has  lost  his  temper,  there  is  no¬ 
thing  which  he  should  more  studiously  avoid  than  the  being 
hooked  into  the  sort  of  contemporary  record  which  the 
French  call  a  proces  verbal.  In  the  midst  of  the  nuns  of 
Port-Royal,  De  Perifixe  had  stormed  and  scolded  more  in 
the  style  of  a  poissarde  than  of  an  Archbishop  of  Paris; 
and  when  the  chronicle  of  all  his  sayings  and  doings  on 
the  occasion  stole  into  light,  with  all  the  forms  of  notarial 
certificates,  he  found  himself,  to  his  unutterable  dismay, 
the  hero  of  as  broad  a  farce  as  had  ever  delighted  that 
laughter-loving  city.  It  was  the  single  joke  of  which  the 
nuns  had  ever  been  either  the  willing  or  the  unintentional 
authors;  and  they  soon  found  to  their  cost  that  it  was  no 
light  matter  to  have  directed  the  current  of  ridicule  against 
an  archiepiscopal,  and,  through  him,  against  a  royal  censor. 

The  invincible  opposition  of  the  Port-Royalists  to  the 
test,  had  awakened  a  more  extended  resistance.  Men  had 
begun  to  deny  the  right  of  assemblies  of  the  clergy,  or  of 
the  King  himself,  to  impose  such  subscriptions.  To  re¬ 
treat  was,  however,  no  longer  possible.  Louis,  therefore, 
by  the  advice  of  the  Jesuits,  desired  the  Pope  himself  first 
to  draw  up  a  Formula,  which  should  declare  his  own  in¬ 
fallible  knowledge  of  matters  of  fact;  and  then  to  require 
the  universal  acceptance  of  it.  Alexander  the  Seventh  ex- 
ultingly  complied.  Subscription  to  De  Marca’s  test  was 
now  exacted  by  papal  authority,  with  the  addition  that  the 
subscribers  should  call  on  the  Deity  himself  to  attest  their 
sincerity.  To  this  demand  the  great  body  of  the  clergy 
of  France  submitted,  but  still  the  resistance  of  the  nuns  of 
Port-Royal  was  unsubdued.  Four  years  of  persecution — 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


299 


of  mean,  unmanly,  worrying  persecution — followed.  The 
history  of  it  fills  many  volumes  of  the  Conventual  Annals, 
exciting  in  the  mind  of  him  who  reads  them,  feelings  of 
amazement  and  disgust,  of  respect  and  pity,  strong  enough 
to  carry  him  through  what  it  must  be  confessed  is  but  a 
wearisome  task.  From  the  poor  remnant  of  earthly  com¬ 
forts  which  these  aged  women  had  retained,  the  mean- 
spirited  king,  his  bigoted  confessors,  and  his  absurd  arch¬ 
bishop,  daily  stole  whatever  could  be  so  pilfered.  From 
their  means  of  preparing  the  world  where  the  wicked  cease 
from  troubling,  every  deduction  was  made  which  sacerdotal 
tyranny  could  enforce.  But  no  tyranny  could  induce  them 
to  call  on  the  God  of  trpth  to  attest  a  lie.  One  after  ano¬ 
ther  went  down,  with  no  priestly  absolution,  to  graves 
which  no  priest  would  bless;  strong,  even  amidst  the  weak¬ 
ness  and  the  mortal  agonies  of  nature,  in  the  assurance, 
that  the  path  to  heaven  could  not  be  found  in  disobedience 
to  the  immutable  laws  which  Heaven  itself  had  estab¬ 
lished. 

Among  the  bishops  of  France,  four  had  been  faithful 
enough  to  insist  on  the  droit  and  the  fait.  In  publishing 
the  papal  bull,  they  attached  to  it  an  express  statement  of 
their  dissent  from  this  new  pretension  of  Rome.  Of  these 
prelates,  one  was  a  brother  of  the  great  Arnauld,  and  bore 
the  same  name.  Alexander  the  Seventh  was  now  on  his 
death-bed;  he  had  even  received  extreme  unction.  But  at 
the  awful  hour  he  retained  enough  of  human  or  of  papal 
feeling  to  launch  against  the  four  prelates,  a  brief  full  of 
menaces,  which  it  devolved  on  his  successor,  Rospigliosi, 
to  execute.  But  Clement  the  Ninth  was  a  man  of  far 
greater  and  more  Christian  spirit.  He  had  mourned  over 
the  distractions  of  the  Church,  and  had  made  its  appro¬ 
priate  glory  to  mediate  between  the  contending  crowns  of 
Spain  and  Portugal.  To  him  the  Duchesse  de  Longueville 
addressed  herself  on  behalf  of  Port-Royal,  in  a  letter  of 
the  most  insinuating  and  impressive  eloquence.  His  nun¬ 
cio  at  Paris  was  made  to  feel  all  the  powers  of  that  fasci¬ 
nating  influence  which  she  still  knew  how  to  employ.  At 
her  hotel,  and  in  her  presence,  a  secret  committee  met  daily 
for  the  management  of  this  affair.  It  was  composed  of 
three  bishops,  aided  by  Arnauld  and  Nicole.  Conde  him¬ 
self  was  induced  by  his  sister  to  lend  the  weight  of  his  au¬ 
thority  to  her  projects.  Even  Le  Tellier  was  circumvented 


300 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


by  the  toils  spread  for  him  by  this  great  mistress  of  in¬ 
trigue.  For  nearly  eighteen  months  she  laboured  to  over¬ 
come  the  obstacles  which  the  pride  of  Rome  and  of  Louis, 
and  the  ill-will  of  the  Father  Annat,  his  confessor,  op¬ 
posed  to  her.  All  difficulties  at  length  yielded  to  her  perse¬ 
verance  and  her  diplomatic  skill.  The  four  bishops  were 
content  to  denounce  the  “  five  propositions  ”  as  heretical, 
and  to  promise  “  a  submission  of  respect  and  discipline”  as 
to  the  fact,  declaring  that  “  they  would  not  contest  the  pa¬ 
pal  decision,  but  would  maintain  an  absolute  silence  on  the 
subject.”  One  of  them  insisted  on  adding  an  express 
statement  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  respecting  such 
matters  of  fact  as  the  contents  of  a  book.  Clement  the 
Ninth  was,  however,  satisfied.  Peace  was  restored  to  the 
Gallican  Church.  Medals  were  struck,  speeches  made, 
and  solemn  audiences  accorded  by  Louis  to  Arnauld  and 
his  associates.  De  Saci  and  his  fellow-prisoners  were  set 
at  liberty.  Port-Royal  was  once  more  permitted  to  re¬ 
cruit  her  monastery,  to  open  her  schools,  and  to  give  shel¬ 
ter  to  her  dispersed  recluses.  Among  the  events  which 
signalized  the  pacification  of  Clement  the  Ninth,  one  de¬ 
mands  especial  notice.  Malebranche  had  signed  the  For¬ 
mulary.  He  now  frankly  avowed  that  he  had  condemned 
Jansenius  without  reading  his  book,  and  implored  the  par¬ 
don  of  God  and  of  man  for  his  guilty  compliance.  It  may 
perhaps  be  consolatory  to  some,  in  our  own  times,  to  be 
informed,  that  in  censuring  as  heretical  the  book  of  a  pro¬ 
fessor  of  divinity,  of  which  they  knew  nothing  but  the 
title-page,  they  might  have  pleaded  the  example  of  so  great 
a  man — a  comfort,  however,  to  which  they  will  not  be  en¬ 
titled,  unless  they  imitate  also  the  example  of  his  repen¬ 
tance. 

Ten  years  elapsed  from  this  pacification  before  the  close 
of  the  extraordinary  career  of  the  Duchess  of  Longueville; 
and  they  were  years  distinguished  in  the  chronicle  of  Port- 
Royal  by  little  else  than  the  peaceful  lives  and  the  tranquil 
deaths  of  many  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley.  In  their 
annals  are  to  be  found  more  than  a  century  of  names,  to 
which  their  admirers  have  promised  not  only  an  eternal  re¬ 
ward,  but  such  immortality  as  the  world  has  to  bestow.  Over¬ 
burdened  as  we  are  by  the  ever  increasing  debt  of  admi¬ 
ration  to  the  illustrious  dead,  these  promises  will  hardly  be 
fulfilled,  at  least  by  our  busy  age:  nor  is  it  easy  even  for 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


301 


one  who  has  carefully  travelled  through  the  whole  of  these 
biographies,  to  select  from  nmong  the  female  candidates  for 
posthumous  renown,  those  to  whom  euoh  homage  is  espe¬ 
cially  due.  Their  portraitures  have  a  strong  resemblance 
to  each  other.  To  each,  in  her  turn,  is  awarded  the  praise 
of  passive  virtue,  of  fervent  piety,  and  of  austerities  from 
which  nature  shrinks.  If  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  will  oc¬ 
casionally  provoke  a  passive  smile,  or  if  a  sigh  must  now 
and  then  be  given  to  the  melancholy  superstitions  of  which 
they  were  the  blameless  victims,  it  is  at  least  impossible 
to  contemplate,  irreverently  or  unmoved,  the  image  of 
purity  and  peace,  of  mutual  kindness  and  cheerful  acquies¬ 
cence  in  the  Divine  will,  which  discloses  itself  at  each  suc¬ 
cessive  aspect  of  that  holy  sisterhood. 

The  sternest  Protestant  cannot  rouse  himself  at  once 
from  the  influence  of  this  course  of  reading:  nor  resume 
with  an  effort  his  conviction,  that  it  is  amidst  the  charities 
of  domestic  life  that  female  virtue  finds  the  highest  exer¬ 
cise,  and  female  piety  the  most  sublime  elevation.  He 
knows,  indeed,  that  exuberant  as  is  the  charter  of  his  faith 
in  models  of  every  human  virtue,  and  in  precepts  of  wis¬ 
dom  under  every  varied  form,  it  contains  not  so  much  as  a 
single  example,  or  a  solitary  admonition,  from  which  the 
Confessors  of  Port-Royal  could  have  shown-  that  a  retreat 
to  such  cloisters  was  in  accordance  with  the  revealed  will 
of  God.  He  knows  also,  that  thus  to  counteract  the  eternal 
laws  of  nature,  and  the  manifest  designs  of  Providence, 
must  be  folly,  however  specious  the  pretext  or  solemn  the 
guise  which  such  folly  may  assume.  He  is  assured  that 
filial  affection,  cheerfully,  temperately,  bountifully,  and 
thankfully  using  the  gifts  of  Heaven,  is  the  best  tribute  which 
man  can  render  to  Him  who  claims  for  himself  the  name  and 
the  character  of  a  Father.  But  with  all  this  knowledge,  the 
disciple  of  Luther  or  of  Calvin  will  yet  close  the  vies 
edificates  and  the  necrologies  of  these  holy  women,  not 
without  a  reluctance  to  doubt,  and  a  wish  to  believe, 
that  they  really  occupied  the  high  and  awful  station  to 
which  they  aspired;  and  stood  apart  from  the  world,  its 
pollutions,  and  its  cares,  to  offer  with  purer  hearts  than 
others,  and  with  more  acceptable  intercessions,  the  sacri¬ 
fice  of  an  uninterrupted  worship,  replete  with  blessings  to 
themselves  and  to  mankind.  Peace  then  to  their  errors, 
and  unquoted  be  any  of  the  innumerable  extravagances 
20 


302 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


which  abound  in  the  records  of  their  lives.  To  the  Re¬ 
cluses  who  shared,  without  over  brooking-  their  solitude, 
we  rather  turn  for  illustrations  of  the  spirit  which  animated 
and  characterized  the  valley  of  Port-Royal. 

On  the  pacification  of  Clement  IX.,  Louis  Sebastian  le 
Nain  de  Tillemont,  who  had  been  educated  in  the  schools 
of  Nicole  and  Lancelot,  returned  in  the  maturity  of  his  man¬ 
hood  to  a  hermitage  which  he  had  erected  near  the  court¬ 
yard  of  the  abbey.  Such  had  been  his  attainments  as  a 
boy,  that  the  pupil  had  soon  exhausted  the  resources  of 
those  profound  teachers,  and  in  his  twentieth  year  had 
commenced  those  works  on  ecclesiastical  history,  which 
have  placed  him  in  the  very  foremost  rank,  if  not  at  the 
head,  of  all  who  have  laboured  in  that  fertile  though  rug¬ 
ged  field.  To  the  culture  of  it,  his  life  was  unceasingly 
devoted.  Though  under  the  direction  of  De  Saci  he  had 
obtained  admission  to  holy  orders,  he  refused  all  the  rich 
preferments  pressed  on  him  by  the  admirers  of  his  genius. 
Tear  after  year  passed  over  him,  unmarked  by  any  event 
which  even  the  pen  of  his  affectionate  biographer,  Fon¬ 
taine,  could  record.  “  He  lived,”  says  that  amiable  writer, 
“alone,  and  with  no  witness  but  God  himself,  who  was 
ever  present  with  him,  and  who  was  all  in  all  to  him.” 
It  was  only  in  an  habitual  and  placid  communion  with  that 
one  associate,  that  he  sought  relief  from  his  gigantic  toils; 
and  with  a  spirit  recruited  by  that  communion,  he  returned 
to  the  society  of  the  Emperors,  the  Popes,  the  Fathers,  and 
the  Saints,  who  were  to  him  as  companions  and  as  friends. 
To  a  man  long  conversant  with  the  anxieties  of  a  secular 
calling,  the  soft  lights  and  the  harmonious  repose  of  such  a 
picture  may  perhaps  exhibit  a  delusive  aspect;  yet  it  can 
hardly  be  a  delusion  to  believe,  that  for  such  colloquy  with 
the  minds  which  yetlive  in  books,  and  with  that  Mind  which 
is  the  source  of  all  life,  would  be  well  exchanged  whatever 
ambition,  society,  fame,  or  fortune,  have  to  confer  on  their 
most  favoured  votaries. 

So  at  least  judged  one,  whom  fame  and  fortune  wooed 
with  their  most  alluring  smiles.  Racine  had  been  trained 
at  Port-Royal,  in  the  same  schools  and  by  the  same  mas¬ 
ters  as  Tillemont.  For  the  great  dramatist,  no  sympathy 
could  of  course  be  expressed  by  the  austere  dwellers  in  the 
desert;  and  perhaps  the  friendship  of  Boileau  may  have 
consoled  him  for  the  alienation  of  his  old  teacher  Nicole. 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


303 


But  when,  in  his  visionnaires ,  that  devout  and  learned  man 
denounced  the  writers  of  stage-plays  as  the  Empoisonneurs 
publics  ties  times,  Racine  keenly  felt  and  resented  the  re¬ 
proach.  Like  most  controversialists,  he  lived  to  repent  the 
asperity  of  his  language:  but  his  repentance  yielded  fruits, 
the  like  of  which  have  rarely  been  gathered  from  that  bitter 
stem.  The  author  of  Andromaque  not  only  sought  the 
pardon,  and  regained  the  friendship  of  Arnauld  and  Nicole, 
but  actually  renounced  the  drama,  exhorted  his  son  to  aban¬ 
don  poetry,  and  became  the  advocate  and  the  historian  of 
Port-Roval,  and  secured  for  his  bones  a  resting-place  in  that 
consecrated  soil.  Happily  for  the  world,  a  method  was 
afterwards  discovered  of  reconciling  the  exercise  of  Racine’s 
genius  with  the  severe  principles  which  Nicole  had  instilled 
into  him  when  a  boy,  and  had  revived  with  such  decisive 
effect  in  his  riper  days.  Esther  and  Athalie  were  allowed, 
even  at  Port-Royal,  to  be  works  not  unseemly  for  a  man 
whose  single  talent  was  that  of  writing  verses,  and  who, 
if  he  could  do  nothing  better,  was  at  least  acknowledged 
to  do  that  well.  But  alas  for  human  consistency!  He 
who  traced  those  majestic  scenes  where  reliance  on  the 
Divine  arm  triumphs  over  all  human  regards  and  terrors, 
was  doomed  himself  to  pine  away  and  to  die  of  a  hard  say¬ 
ing  of  the  hard  master  it  was  his  ill  fate  to  serve.  His 
guilt  was  to  have  drawn  up  a  Memoir  on  the  means  of  re¬ 
lieving  the  starving  poor  at  Paris.  His  punishment,  the 
indignant  exclamation  of  the  great  Louis,  “  Because  he  is 
an  all-accomplished  versifier,  does  he  presume  that  lie 
knows  every  thing?  Because  he  is  a  great  poet,  does  he 
mean  to  become  a  minister?”  Well  might  the  sensitive 
spirit  which  such  a  feather  could  crush,  wish  with  Wolsev 
that  he  had  served  his  God  as  faithfully  as  his  King,  and 
repine  amidst  the  pageantries  of  Versailles  for  the  devout 
composure  of  Port-Royal. 

And  many  were  the  eminent  men  who  sought  and  en¬ 
joyed  that  repose.  There  dwelt  the  Prince  de  Conti,  one 
of  the  heroes  of  the  Fronde,  and  still  more  memorable  for 
his  penitence  and  restitutions;  of  whom  it  is  recorded,  that 
his  young  children  were  so  impressed  by  his  absolute  de¬ 
votedness  to  the  Divine  will,  as  to  conceal  from  him  the 
story  of  Abraham,  lest  the  example  of  the  sacrifice  of 
Isaac  should  be  imitated  at  their  own  expense.  There,  too, 
resided  the  Due  de  Laincourt,  on  whom  fortune  had  ex- 


304 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


liausted  all  her  bounties,  and  who,  under  the  loss  of  them 
all,  rose  to  the  utmost  heroism  of  a  meek,  unrepining,  and 
cheerful  resignation.  Pontchateau,  a  noble,  a  courtier,  an 
ambassador,  and  at  length  the  apostolical  prothonotary  at 
Rome,  brought  all  the  strange  vicissitudes  of  his  life  to  an 
end,  by  becoming,  under  the  name  of  Le  Mercier,  a  com¬ 
mon  labourer  in  the  gardens,  and  a  devout  worshipper  in 
the  church  of  Port-Royal.  But  this  chronicle  of  worthies, 
spreading  out  into  an  interminable  length,  must  give  place  to 
a  very  brief  account  of  the  events  which  reduced  to  a  desert 
the  solitudes  which  they  had  cultivated  and  adorned. 

Amidst  the  contentions  of  the  Gallican  Church,  full  proof 
had  been  given  of  the  keen  edge  of  those  weapons  which 
might  be  borrowed  from  the  papal  arsenals.  It  readily  oc¬ 
curred  to  the  sufferers,  that  the  resource  which  the  Jesuits 
had  so  successfully  employed,  might  be  turned  against 
themselves.  Pascal  had  startled  the  civilized  world  with 
the  exposure  of  Molinist  errors,  hostile  not  merely  to  the 
Catholic  creed,  but  to  those  principles  of  virtue  which  are 
the  very  cement  of  human  society.  They  had  imputed  to 
Jansenius  five  heresies  on  the  obscure  subjects  of  divine 
grace  and  human  freedom;  but  who  could  number  the  pro¬ 
positions  in  which  Escobar  and  his  associates  had  spurned 
the  authority  of  the  decalogue  itself?  The  assiduity  of  the 
bishops  of  Arras  and  St.  Pons  collected  sixty-five  of  these 
scandalous  dogmas,  and  these  they  transmitted  to  Rome  in 
a  memorial  of  which  Nicole  wras  believed  to  be  the  writer, 
and  known  to  be  the  translator.  Righteous,  unqualified, 
and  decisive  was  the  papal  condemnation  of  the  morality 
of  the  Jesuits;  but  fatal  to  the  repose  of  Port-Royal  was  the 
triumph  of  one  of  her  brightest  ornaments.  The  Duchesse 
de  Longueville  had  lately  died,  and  with  her  had  disap¬ 
peared  the  motive  which  had  induced  Louis  to  show  some 
forbearance  to  the  objects  of  her  affectionate  solicitude. 
Harlai  now  governed  the  see  of  Paris.  He  was  a  man  of 
disreputable  character,  and  the  mere  instrument  of  the  king. 
Louis  was  in  bondage  to  Madame  de  Maintenon,  and  she 
to  the  Jesuits.  Their  vengeance  scarcely  sought  a  pre¬ 
text,  and  soon  found  its  gratification. 

In  the  exercise  of  his  archiepiscopal  authority,  Harlai 
banished  De  Saci,  Tillemont,  and  Pontchateau,  from  the 
valley  of  Port-Royal,  Nicole  and  Arnauld  sought  shelter 
in  the  Netherlands  from  his  menaces.  The  postulates 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


305 


and  scholars  were  once  more  expelled,  and  the  admission 
of  novices  was  again  forbidden. 

At  this  epoch,  another  lady  of  the  house  of  Arnauld — a 
cousin  and  namesake  of  the  Mere  Angelique — was  invested 
with  the  dignity  of  abbess.  Her  genius,  her  virtue,  and 
her  learning,  are  the  subject  of  eulogies  too  indistinct  to  be 
impressive,  and  too  hyperbolical  to  win  implicit  credence. 
Yet,  if  she  was  the  writer  of  the  memoir  in  defence  of  her 
monastery  which  bears  her  name,  there  was  no  apparent 
obstacle,  but  her  sex  and  her  profession,  to  her  successful 
rivalry  of  the  greatest  masters  of  juridical  eloquence  in 
France.  Ineffectual,  however,  would  have  been  all  the 
rhetoric  which  ever  adorned  the  parliament  of  Paris,  to 
avert  the  threatened  doom  of  the  stronghold  of  Jansenism. 
As  he  approached  the  tomb,  Harlai’s  resentment  became 
more  deep  and  settled.  He  left  it  a  fatal  inheritance  to  his 
successor,  the  Cardinal  de  Noailles.  A  weak  and  obsti¬ 
nate,  but  not  unfeeling  man,  De  Noailles  owed  his  promo¬ 
tion  to  the  see  of  Paris  to  his  fixed  hostility  to  Port-Royal, 
and  his  known  willingness  to  hazard  the  odium  of  subvert¬ 
ing  that  ancient  seat  of  piety  and  learning.  The  apology 
soon  presented  itself. 

Several  years  had  elapsed  since  the  dispute  about  “  Le 
Droit  et  le  Fait  de  Jansenius”  had  apparently  reached  its 
close.  Revolving  this  passage  of  by-gone  history,  a  priest 
had  improved  or  amused  his  leisure,  by  drawing  up,  for 
the  decision  of  the  Sorbonne,  “a  case  of  conscience, ” 
which,  it  must  be  owned,  was  a  hard  problem  for  the  most 
expert  casuist.  Of  two  infallible  Popes,  one  had  with  his 
dying  breath  affirmed,  as  a  momentous  truth,  a  proposition, 
which  the  other  had  abandoned,  if  not  retracted.  What 
was  it  the  duty  of  the  faithful  to  believe  on  the  subject? 
Forty  doctors  answered,  that  it  was  enough  to  maintain  a 
respectful  silence  as  to  the  “fait  de  Jansenius.”  Archi- 
episcopal  mandaments,  treatises  of  the  learned,  royal  orders 
in  council,  and  parliamentary  arrets,  flew  thick  and  fast 
through  the  troubled  air,  and  obscured  the  daylight  of  com¬ 
mon  sense.  Again  the  eldest  son  of  the  church  invoked 
the  authority  of  her  spiritual  father. 

In  oracular  darkness  went  forth  from  the  Vatican,  the 
sentence,  that  “respectful  silence  is  not  a  sufficient  defe¬ 
rence  for  apostolical  constitutions.”  This  is  what  is  called, 
in  ecclesiastical  story,  the  bull  “  Vineam  Domini  Sabaoth.” 

26* 


306 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


Under  shelter  of  an  abstract  theorem  which  no  Catholic 
could  deny,  it  ingeniously  concealed  the  conflict  of  opinion 
of  two  infallible  Pontiffs.  Subscription  of  their  unqualified 
assent  to  the  bull  “Vineam”  was  demanded  from  the  nuns 
of  Port-Royal,  and  from  them  alone.  They  cheerfully 
subscribed;  but  with  the  addition,  that  their  signature  was 
not  to  be  understood  as  derogating  from  what  had  been  de¬ 
termined  on  the  pacification  ojf  Clement  IX.  This  was 
their  final  and  their  fatal  act  of  contumacy.  Decree  after 
decree  was  fulminated  by  De  Noailles.  He  forbade  the 
admission  of  any  new  members  of  their  house.  He  pro¬ 
hibited  the  election  of  an  abbess.  He  despoiled  them  of 
a  large  part  of  their  estates.  He  interdicted  to  them  all  the 
sacraments  of  the  church.  He  obtained  a  papal  bull  for 
the  suppression  of  their  monastery;  and,  in  October,  1709, 
lie  carried  it  into  effect  by  an  armed  force,  under  the  Mar¬ 
quis  D’Argenson. 

There  is  in  Westminster  Hall  a  tradition  that  an  eminent 
advocate  of  our  own  times,  addressed  to  the  House  of 
Peers  during  sixteen  successive  days  a  speech,  in  the 
course  of  which  (such  is  the  calculation)  he  employed  all 
the  words  in  Johnson’s  Dictionary,  one  with  another,  just 
thirty-five  times  over.  Neither  boasting  the  copiousness, 
nor  presuming  on  the  patience  which  were  at  the  command 
of  that  great  lawyer,  we  have  compressed  into  a  few  sen¬ 
tences  the  history  of  a  contest,  which,  if  not  so  abridged, 
would  have  swollen  to  the  utmost  limits  of  that  unparalleled 
oration.  But  to  those  who  have  leisure  for  such  studies, 
and  who  delight  in  a  well-fought  forensic  field,  we  can 
promise  that  pleasure  in  the  highest  degree  from  a  perusal 
of  the  contest  between  the  aged  ladies  of  Port-Royal,  and 
their  royal,  mitred,  and  ermined  antagonists.  Never  was 
a  more  gallant  struggle  against  injustice.  After  exhausting 
ail  the  resources  of  legal  defence,  those  helpless  and  appa¬ 
rently  feeble  women  disputed  every  inch  of  ground  by 
protests,  remonstrances,  and  petitions,  which,  for  the  mo¬ 
ment  at  least,  held  their  assailants  in  check,  and  which  yet 
remain  a  wondrous  monument  of  their  perseverance  and 
capacity,  and  of  the  absolute  self-control  which,  amidst  the 
outpourings  ofdieir  griefs,  and  the  exposure  of  their  wrongs, 
restrained  every  expression  of  asperity  or  resentment. 
Never  was  the  genius  of  the  family  of  Arnauld  exhibited 
with  greater  lustre,  and  never  with  less  effect. 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


I 


307 


In  a  gray  autumnal  morning,  a  long  file  of  armed  horse¬ 
men,  under  the  command  of  D’Argenson,  was  seen  to  issue 
from  the  woods  which  overhung  the  ill-fated  monastery. 
In  the  name  of  Louis  he  demanded  and  obtained  admission 
into  that  sacred  enclosure.  Seated  on  the  abbatial  throne, 
he  summoned  the  nuns  into  his  presence.  They  appeared 
before  him  veiled,  silent,  and  submissive.  Their  papers, 
their  title-deeds,  and  their  property  were  then  seized,  and 
proclamation  made  of  a  royal  decree  which  directed  their 
immediate  exile.  It  was  instantly  carried  into  effect.  Far 
and  wide,  along  the  summits  of  the  neighbouring  hills, 
might  be  seen  a  thronging  multitude  of  the  peasants  whom 
they  had  instructed,  and  of  the  poor  whom  they  had  re¬ 
lieved.  Bitter  cries  of  indignation  and  of  grief,  joined  with 
fervent  prayers,  arose  from  these  helpless  people,  as,  one 
after  another,  the  nuns  entered  the  carriages  drawn  lip  for 
their  reception.  Each  pursued  her  solitary  journey  to  the 
prison  destined  for  her.  Of  these  venerable  women,  some 
had  passed  their  eightieth  year,  and  the  youngest  was  far 
advanced  in  life.  Labouring  under  paralysis  and  other  in¬ 
firmities  of  old  age,  several  of  them  reached  at  once  their 
prisons  and  their  graves.  Others  died  under  the  distress 
and  fatigues  of  their  journey.  Some  possessed  energies 
which  no  sufferings  could  subdue.  Madame  de  Remicourt, 
for  example,  was  kept  for  two  years  in  solitary  confine¬ 
ment;  in  a  cell  lighted  and  ventilated  only  through  the 
chimney;  without  fire,  society,  or  books.  “You  may 
persecute,  but  you  will  never  change  Madame  de  Remi¬ 
court,”  said  the  archbishop;  “for”  (such  was  his  profound 
view  of  the  phenomenon)  “she  has  a  square  head,  and 
people  with  square  heads  are  always  obstinate.”  Last  in 
the  number  of  exiles  appeared  at  the  gates  of  the  abbey, 
the  prioress,  Louise  de  St.  Anastasie  Mesnil  de  Courtiaux. 
She  had  seen  her  aged  sisters  one  by  one  quit  for  ever  the 
abode,  the  associates,  and  the  employments  of  their  lives. 
To  each  she  had  given  her  parting  benediction.  She  shed 
no  tear,  she  breathed  no  murmur,  nor  for  a  moment  be¬ 
trayed  the  dignity  of  her  office,  or  the  constancy  of  her 
mind.  “  Be  faithful  to  the  end,”  were  the  last  words  which 
she  addressed  to  the  last  companion  of  her  sorrows.  And 
nobly  did  she  fulfil  her  own  counsels.  She  was  conducted 
to  a  convent,  where,  under  a  close  guard,  she  was  com¬ 
pelled  to  endure  the  utmost  rigours  of  a  jail.  Deprived  of 


308 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


all  those  religious  comforts  which  it  is  in  the  power  of  man 
to  minister,  she  enjoyed  a  solace,  and  found  a  strength, 
which  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  man  to  take  away.  In 
common  with  the  greater  part  of  her  fellow-sufferers,  she 
died  with  no  priestly  absolution,  and  was  consigned  to  an 
unhallowed  grave.  They  died  the  martyrs  of  sincerity; 
strong  in  the  faith  that  a  lie  must  ever  be  hateful  in  the 
sight  of  God,  though  infallible  popes  should  exact  it,  or  an 
infallible  church,  as  represented  by  cardinals  and  confessors, 
should  persuade  it. 

Unsatiated  by  the  calamities  of  the  nuns,  the  vengeance 
of  the  enemies  of  Port-Royal  was  directed  against  the 
buildings  where  they  had  dwelt,  the  sacred  edifice  where 
they  had  worshipped,  and  the  tombs  in  which  their  dead 
had  been  interred.  The  monastery  and  the  adjacent  church 
were  overthrown  from  their  foundations.  Workmen,  pre¬ 
pared  by  hard  drinking  for  their  task,  broke  open  the  graves 
in  which  the  nuns  and  recluses  of  former  times  had  been 
interred.  With  obscene  ribaldry,  and  outrages  too  disgust¬ 
ing  to  be  detailed,  they  piled  up  a  loathsome  heap  of  bones 
and  corpses,  on  which  the  dogs  were  permitted  to  feed. 
What  remained  was  thrown  into  a  pit,  prepared  for  the 
purpose,  near  the  neighbouring  church-yard  of  St.  Lambert. 

A  wooden  cross,  erected  by  the  villagers,  marked  the 
spot  where  many  a  pilgrim  resorted  to  pray  for  the  souls 
of  the  departed,  and  for  his  own.  At  length  no  trace  re¬ 
mained  of  the  fortress  of  Jansenism  to  offend  the  eye  of 
the  Jesuits,  or  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  the  illustrious 
dead  with  whom  they  had  so  long  contended.  The  soli¬ 
tary  Gothic  arch,  the  water-mill,  and  the  dovecot,  rising 
from  the  banks  of  the  pool,  with  the  decayed  towers  and 
the  farm-house  on  the  slopes  of  the  valley,  are  all  that  now 
attest  that  it  was  once  the  crowded  abode  of  the  wise,  the 
learned,  and  the  good.  In  that  spot,  however,  may  still  be 
seen  the  winding  brook,  the  verdant  hills,  and  the  quiet 
meadows,  nature’s  indestructible  monuments  to  the  devout 
men  and  holy  women  who  nurtured  there  affections  which 
made  them  lovely  in  their  lives,  and  hopes  which  rendered 
them  triumphant  in  death.  Nor  in  her  long  roll  of  martyrs 
has  history  to  record  the  names  of  any  who  suffered  with 
greater  constancy,  or  in  a  nobler  cause;  for  their  conflict 
was  with  the  very  church  they  most  profoundly  revered, 
and  their  cause  was  that  of  devotedness  to  sincerity  and  the 
abhorrence  of  falsehood. 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


309 


Amongst  the  interpreters  of  the  counsels  of  Divine  Pro¬ 
vidence  in  that  age,  there  were  not  wanting  many  who 
found,  in  the  calamities  which  overwhelmed  the  declining 
years  of  Louis,  the  retribution  of  an  avenging  Deity  for  the 
wrongs  inflicted  on  Port-Royal.  If  it  were  given  to  man 
to  decipher  the  mysterious  characters  engraven  on  the 
scroll  of  this  world’s  history,  it  might  not  be  difficult  to 
find,  in  the  annals  of  his  reign,  other  and  yet  more  weighty 
reasons  for  the  awakening-  of  Nemesis  in  France  at  the 
commencement  of  the  eighteenth  century.  But  of  the 
mere  chronological  fact,  there  is  no  doubt.  The  deaths  of 
the  three  Dauphins,  and  the  victories  of  Eugene  and  Marl¬ 
borough,  followed  hard  on  the  dispersion  of  the  nuns. 
With  his  dying  breath,  Louis  cast  the  responsibility  on  the 
Jesuits  who  stood  round  his  bed.  “If,  indeed,  you  have 
misled  and  deceived  me” — such  was  his  last  address  to  his 
confessors — “you  are  deeply  guilty,  for  in  truth  I  acted  in 
good  faith.  I  sincerely  sought  the  peace  of  the  church.” 
The  humiliation  of  his  spiritual  advisers  quickly  followed. 
It  was  preceded  by  the  retirement  and  death  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  who  had  both  provoked  and  derided  the  suffer¬ 
ings  of  the  Port-Royalists.  The  very  type  of  mediocrity 
out  of  place,  she  is  to  our  mind  the  least  winning  of  all  the 
ladies  of  equivocal  or  desperate  reputation  who  in  modern 
times  have  stood  on  the  steps  of  European  thrones.  Her 
power  was  sustained  by  the  feebleness  of  the  mind  she  had 
subdued,  and  by  the  craftiness  of  those  who  had  subjugated 
her  own.  Her  prudery  and  her  religiousness,  such  as  it 
was,  served  but  to  deepen  the  aversion  which  her  intriguing, 
selfish,  narrow-minded,  and  bigoted  spirit  excite  and  justify; 
although,  in  her  own  view  of  the  matter,  she  probably  hoped 
to  propitiate  the  favour  of  Heaven  and  the  applause  of  the 
world,  by  directing  against  the  unoffending  women  of  Port- 
Royal  the  deadly  wrath  of  the  worn-out  debauchee,  whose 
jaded  spirits  and  unquiet  conscience  it  was  her  daily  task 
to  sustain  and  flatter.  De  Noailles,  the  instrument  of  her 
cruelty,  lived  to  bewail  his  guilt  with  such  strange  agonies 
of  remorse  as  to  rescue  his  memory  from  all  feelings  of  ha¬ 
tred,  although  it  is  difficult  to  contemplate  without  some 
failure  of  respect,  the  exhibition  of  emotions,  which,  how¬ 
ever  just  in  themselves,  deprived  their  victim  of  all  powers 
of  self-control,  and  of  every  semblance  of  decorous  compo¬ 
sure.  His  bowlings  are  described  by  the  witness  of  them, 


310 


STEPHEN  S  MISCELLANIES. 


to  have  been  more  like  those  of  a  wild  beast  or  a  maniac, 
than  of  a  reasonable  man. 

If  these  slight  notices  of  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  Port- 
Royal,  (slight  indeed,  when  compared  with  the  original 
materials  from  which  they  have  been  drawn,)  should  be 
ascribed  by  any  one  to  a  pen  plighted  to  do  suit  and  ser¬ 
vice  to  the  cause  of  Rome,  no  surmise  could  be  wider  of 
the  mark.  No  Protestant  can  read  the  writings  of  the 
Port-Royalists  themselves,  without  gratitude  for  his  de¬ 
liverance  from  the  superstitions  of  a  church  which  calls 
herself  Catholic,  and  boasts  that  she  is  eternal.  That  the 
Church  of  Rome  may  flourish  as  long  as  the  race  of  man 
shall  endure,  is  indeed  a  conclusion  which  may  reasona¬ 
bly  be  adopted  by  him  who  divines  the  future  only  from 
the  past.  For  where  is  the  land,  or  what  the  historical 
period,  in  which  a  conspicuous  place  has  not  been  held  by 
phenomena  essentially  the  same,  however  circumstantially 
different?  In  what  age  has  man  not  been  a  worshipper  of 
the  visible?  In  what  country  has  imagination— -the  sensu¬ 
ous  property  of  the  mind — failed  to  triumph  over  those 
mental  powers  which  are  purely  contemplative  ?  Who 
can  discover  a  period  in  which  religion  has  not  more  or 
less  assumed  the  form  of  a  compromise  between  the  self- 
dependence  and  the  self-distrust  of  her  votaries— between 
their  abasement  to  human  authority  and  their  conviction  of 
its  worthlessness — between  their  awe  of  the  divine  power 
and  their  habitual  revolt  against  the  divine  will?  Of  every 
such  compromise,  the  indications  have  ever  been  the  same — - 
a  worshipper  of  pomp  and  ceremonial,  a  spiritual  despotism 
exercised  by  a  sacerdotal  caste,  bodily  penances  and  costly 
expiations,  and  the  constant  intervention  of  man,  and  of  the 
works  of  man,  between  the  worshipper  and  the  supreme 
object  of  his  worship.  So  long  as  human  nature  shall 
continue  what  it  is,  the  religion  of  human  nature  will  be 
unchanged.  The  Church  of  Rome  will  be  eternal,  if  man, 
such  as  he  now  is,  is  himself  eternal. 

But  for  every  labour  under  the  sun,  says  the  Wise  Man, 
there  is  a  time.  There  is  a  time  for  bearing  testimony 
against  the  errors  of  Rome,  why  not  also  a  time  for  testi¬ 
fying  to  the  sublime  virtues  with  which  those  errors  have 
been  so  often  associated  ?  Are  we  for  ever  to  admit  and 
never  to  practise  the  duties  of  kindness  and  mutual  forbear¬ 
ance  ?  Does  Christianity  consist  in  a  vivid  perception  of 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


311 


the  faults,  and  an  obtuse  blindness  to  the  merits  of  those 
who  differ  from  us?  Is  charily  a  virtue  only  when  we 
ourcolves  are  the  objects  of  it?  Is  there  not  a  church  as 
pure  and  more  catholic  than  those  of  Oxford  or  Rome — a 
church  comprehending  within  its  limits  every  human  being 
who,  according  to  the  measure  of  the  knowledge  placed 
within  his  reach,  strives  habitually  to  be  conformed  to  the 
will  of  the  common  Father  of  us  all?  To  indulge  hope 
beyond  the  pale  of  some  narrow  communion,  has,  by  each 
Christian  society  in  its  turn,  been  denounced  as  a  daring 
presumption.  Yet  hope  lias  come  to  all,  and  with  her 
faith  and  charity,  her  inseparable  companions.  Amidst 
the  shock  of  contending  creeds,  and  the  uproar  of  anathe¬ 
mas,  they  who  have  ears  to  hear,  and  hearts  to  understand, 
have  listened  to  gentler  and  more  kindly  sounds.  Good  men 
may  debate  as  polemics,  but  they  will  feel  as  Christians. 
On  the  universal  mind  of  Christendom  is  indelibly  engraven 
one  image,  towards  which  the  eyes  of  all  are  more  or  less 
earnestly  directed.  Whoever  has  himself  caught  any  re¬ 
semblance,  however  faint  and  imperfect,  to  that  divine  and 
benignant  Original,  has  in  his  measure  learned  to  recog¬ 
nise  a  brother  wherever  he  can  discern  the  same  resem¬ 
blance.* 

There  is  an  essential  unity  in  that  kingdom  which  is  not  of 
this  world.  But  within  the  provinces  of  that  mighty  state 
there  is  room  for  endless  varieties  of  administration,  and 
for  local  laws  and  customs  widely  differing  from  each  other. 
The  unity  consists  in  the  one  object  of  worship — the  one 
object  of  affiance — the  one  source  of  virtue — the  one  ce¬ 
menting  principle  of  mutual  love,  which  pervade  and  ani¬ 
mate  the  whole.  The  diversities  are,  and  must  be,  as  nu¬ 
merous  and  intractable  as  are  the  essential  distinctions 
which  nature,  habit  and  circumstances  have  created  amongst 
men.  Uniformity  of  creeds,  of  discipline,  of  ritual,  and  of 
ceremonies,  in  such  a  world  as  ours! — a  world  where  no 
two  men  are  not  as  distinguishable  in  their  mental  as  in 
their  physical  aspect;  where  every  petty  community  has 

A 

*  See  on  this  subject  a  book  entitled  “  Catholic  Christianity,”  the 
anonymous  work  of  the  Rev.  E,  JVl‘Vicar,  now  a  minister  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland  in  Ceylon.  Why  such  a  book  should  not  have 
attained  an  extensive  celebrity,  or  why  such  a  writer  should  have 
been  permitted  to  quit  his  native  land,  are  questions  to  which  we 
fear  no  satisfactory  answer  could  be  given  by  the  dispensers  of  fame 
or  of  church  preferment. 


312 


STEPHEN’S  MISCELLANIES. 


its  separate  system  of  civil  government;  where  all  that 
meets  the  eye,  and  all  that  arrests  the  ear,  has  the  stamp 
of  boundless  and  infinite  variety!  What  are  the  harmonies 
of  tone,  of  colour,  and  of  form,  but  the  result  of  contrasts — 
of  contrasts  held  in  subordination  to  one  pervading  princi¬ 
ple,  which  reconciles  without  confounding  the  component 
elements  of  the  music,  the  painting,  or  the  structure?  In 
the  physical  works  of  God,  beauty  could  have  no  existence 
without  endless  diversities.  Why  assume  that  in  religious 
society — a  work  not  less  surely  to  be  ascribed  to  the  su¬ 
preme  author  of  all  things — this  law  is  absolutely  reversed? 
Were  it  possible  to  subdue  that  innate  tendency  of  the 
human  mind,  which  compels  men  to  differ  in  religious 
opinions  and  observances,  at  least  as  widely  as  on  all  other 
subjects,  what  would  be  the  results  of  such  a  triumph? 
Where  would  then  be  the  free  comparison,  and  the  con¬ 
tinual  enlargement  of  thought;  where  the  self-distrusts 
which  are  the  springs  of  humility,  or  the  mutual  dependen¬ 
cies  which  are  the  bonds  of  love?  He  who  made  us  with 
this  infinite  variety  in  our  intellectual  and  physical  consti¬ 
tution,  must  have  foreseen,  and  foreseeing,  must  have  in¬ 
tended,  a  corresponding  dissimilarity  in  the  opinions  of  his 
creatures  on  all  questions  submitted  to  their  judgment,  and 
proposed  for  their  acceptance.  For  truth  is  his  law;  and 
if  all  will  profess  to  think  alike,  all  must  live  in  the  habitual 
violation  of  it. 

Zeal  for  uniformity  attests  the  latent  distrusts,  not  the 
firm  convictions  of  the  zealot.  In  proportion  to  the  strength 
of  our  self-reliance,  is  our  indifference  to  the  multiplication 
of  suffrages  in  favour  of  our  own  judgment.  Our  minds 
are  steeped  in  imagery;  and  where  the  visible  form  is  not, 
the  impalpable  spirit  escapes  the  notice  of  the  unreflecting 
multitude.  In  common  hands,  analysis  stops  at  the  species 
or  the  genus,  and  cannot  rise  to  the  order  or  the  class.  To 
distinguish  birds  from  fishes,  beasts  from  insects,  limits  the 
efforts  of  the  vulgar  observer  of  the  face  of  nature.  But 
Cuvier  could  trace  the  sublime  unity,  the  universal  type, 
the  fontal  Idea  existing  in  the  creative  intelligence,  which 
connects  as  one  the  mammoth  and  the  snail.  So,  common 
observers  can  distinguish  from  each  other  the  different  va¬ 
rieties  of  religious  society,  and  can  rise  no  higher.  Where 
one  assembly  worships  with  harmonies  of  music,  fumes  of 
incense,  ancient  liturgies,  and  a  gorgeous  ceremonial,  and 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


313 


another  listens  to  the  unaided  voice  of  a  single  pastor,  they 
can  perceive  and  record  the  differences;  but  the  hidden 
ties  which  unite  them  both  escape  such  observation.  All 
appears  as  contrast,  and  all  ministers  to  antipathy  and 
discord.  It  is  our  belief  that  these  things  may  be  rightly 
viewed  in  a  different  aspect,  and  yet  with  the  most  severe 
conformity  to  the  divine  will,  whether  as  intimated  by  na¬ 
tural  religion,  or  as  revealed  in  holy  scripture.  We  believe 
that,  in  the  judgment  of  an  enlightened  charity,  many 
Christian  societies,  who  are  accustomed  to  denounce  each 
other’s  errors,  will  at  length  come  to  be  regarded  as  mem¬ 
bers  in  common  of  the  one  great  and  comprehensive  church, 
in  which  diversities  of  forms  are  harmonized  by  an  all-per¬ 
vading  unity  of  spirit.  For  ourselves,  at  least,  we  should 
deeply  regret  to  conclude  that  we  were  aliens  from  that 
great  Christian  Commonwealth  of  which  the  Nuns  and 
Recluses  of  the  valley  of  Port-Royal  were  members,  and 
members  assuredly  of  no  common  excellence. 


27 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES.* 


(Edinburgh  Review,  1842.) 


On  the  dawn  of  the  day  which,  in  the  year  1534,  the 
Church  of  Rome  celebrated  the  feast  of  the  Assumption  ol 
Our  Blessed  Lady,  a  little  company  of  men,  whose  vest¬ 
ments  bespoke  their  religious  character,  emerged  in  solemn 
procession  from  the  deep  shadows  cast  by  the  towers  ol 
Notre  Dame  over  the  silent  city  below  them.  In  a  silence 
not  less  profound,  except  when  broken  by  the  chant  of  the 
matins  appropriate  to  that  sacred  season,  they  climbed  the 
Hill  of  Martyrs,  and  descended  into  the  Crypt,  which  then 
ascertained  the  spot  where  the  Apostle  of  France  had  won 
the  crown  of  martyrdom.  With  a  stately  though  halting 
gait,  ae  one  accustomed  to  military  command,  marched  at 
their  head  a  man  of  swarthy  complexion,  bald-headed  and 
of  middle  stature,  who  had  passed  the  meridian  of  life;  his 
deep-set  eyes  glowing  as  with  a  perennial  lire,  from  beneath 
brows,  which,  had  phrenology  then  been  born,  she  might 
have  portrayed  in  her  loftiest  style,  but  which,  without  her 
aid,  announced  a  commission  from  on  high  to  subjugate  and 
to  rule  mankind.  So  majestic,  indeed,  was  the  aspect  of 
Ignatius  Loyola,  that,  during  the  sixteenth  century  few, 
if  any  of  the  books  of  his  order  appeared  without  the  im¬ 
press  of  that  imperial  countenance.  Beside  him  in  the 
chapel  of  St.  Denys  knelt  another  worshipper,  whose 
manly  bearing,  buoyant  step,  clear  blue  eye,  and  finely- 
chiseled  features,  contrasted  strangely  with  the  solemnities 
in  which  he  was  engaged.  Then  in  early  manhood,  Fran¬ 
cis  Xavier  united  in  his  person  the  dignity  befitting  his 

*  Exercitia  Spiritualia  S.  P.  Ignatii  Loyolee,  cam  Versione  lite¬ 
ral!  ex  Autographo  Hispariico  Prcp.mittuntur  R.  P.  Joannis  Rooth- 
men,  Prsepositi  Generalis  Societatis  Jesu,  Literse  Encyclice  ad  Pa- 
tres  et  Fratres  ejusdem  Societatis,  de  Spiritualium  Exercitiorum  S. 
P.  N,  Studio  et  Usu.  Londini,  ty pis  C.  Richards.  1837. 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  I1IS  ASSOCIATES. 


313 


birth  as  a  grandee  of  Spain,  and  the  grace  which  should 
adorn  a  page  of  the  Queen  of  Castile  and  Arragon.  Not 
less  incongruous  with  the  scene  in  which  they  bore  their 
parts,  were  the  slight  forms  of  the  boy  Alphonso  Salmeron 
and  of  his  bosom  friend  Jago  Laynez,  the  destined  successor 
of  Ignatius  in  his  spiritual  dynasty.  With  them  Nicholas 
Alphonso  Bobadilla,  and  Simon  Rodriguez — the  first  a 
teacher,  the  second  a  student  of  philosophy — prostrated 
themselves  before  the  altar,  where  ministered  Peter  Faber, 
once  a  shepherd  in  the  mountains  of  Savoy,  but  now  a 
priest  in  holy  orders.  By  his  hands  was  distributed  to  his 
associates  the  seeming  bread,  over  which  he  had  uttered 
words  of  more  than  miraculous  efficacy;  and  then  were 
lifted  up  their  united  voices,  uttering,  in  low  but  distinct 
articulation,  an  oath,  at  the  deep  significance  of  which  the 
nations  might  have  trembled  or  rejoiced.  Never  did  human 
lips  pronounce  a  vow  more  religiously  observed,  or  preg¬ 
nant  with  results  more  momentous. 

Descended  from  an  illustrious  family,  Ignatius  had  in  his 
youth  been  a  courtier  and  a  cavalier,  and  if  not  a  poet  at 
least  a  cultivator  of  poetry.  At  the  siege  of  Pampeluna 
his  leg  was  broken,  and,  after  the  failure  of  mere  vulgar 
leeches,  was  set  by  a  touch  from  the  hand  of  the  Prince  of 
Apostles.  Yet  St.  Peter’s  therapeutic  skill  was  less  perfect 
than  might  have  been  expected  from  so  exalted  a  chirurgeon; 
for  a  splinter  still  protruded  through  the  skin,  and  the  limb 
was  shrunk  and  shortened.  To  regain  his  fair  propor¬ 
tions,  Ignatius  had  himself  literally  stretched  on  the  rack; 
and  expiated,  by  a  long  confinement  to  his  couch,  this  sin¬ 
gular  experiment  to  reduce  his  refractory  bones  and  sinews. 
Books  of  knight-errantry  relieved  the  lassitude  of  sickness, 
and,  when  these  were  exhausted,  he  betook  himself  to  a  se¬ 
ries  of  still  more  marvellous  romances.  In  the  legends  of  the 
Saints  the  disabled  soldier  discovered  a  new  field  of  emula¬ 
tion  and  of  glory.  Compared  with  their  self-conquests  and 
their  high  rewards,  the  achievements  and  the  renown  of 
Roland  and  of  Amadis  waxed  dim.  Compared  with  the 
peerless  damsels  for  whose  smiles  Paladins  had  fought 
and  died,  how  transcendently  glorious  the  image  of  femi¬ 
nine  loveliness  and  angelic  purity  which  had  irradiated  the 
hermit’s  cell  and  the  path  of  the  wayworn  pilgrims!  Far 
as  the  heavens  are  above  the  earth  would  be  the  plighted 
fealty  of  the  knight  of  the  Virgin  Mother  beyond  the  no- 


316  Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

blest  devotion  of  mere  human  chivalry.  In  her  service  he 
would  cast  his  shield  over  the  church  which  ascribed  to 
her  more  than  celestial  dignities;  and  bathe  in  the  blood  of 
her  enemies  the  sword  once  desecrated  to  the  mean  ends 
of  worldly  ambition.  Nor  were  these  vows  unheeded  by 
her  to  whom  they  were  addressed.  Environed  in  light, 
and  clasping  her  infant  to  her  bosom,  she  revealed  herself 
to  the  adoring  gaze  of  her  champion.  At  that  heavenly 
vision,  all  fantasies  of  worldly  and  sensual  delight,  like  ex¬ 
orcised  demons,  fled  from  his  soul  into  an  eternal  exile. 
He  rose,  suspended  at  her  shrine  his  secular  weapons,  per¬ 
formed  there  his  nocturnal  vigils,  and  with  returning  day 
retired  to  consecrate  his  future  life  to  the  glory  of  the 
Virgo  Deipara. 

To  these  erotic  dreams  succeeded  stern  realities;  convul¬ 
sive  agonies  of  prayer,  wailings  of  remorse,  and  self-inflict¬ 
ed  bodily  torments.  Exchanging  dresses  with  a  beggar, 
he  lined  his  gaberdine  with  prickly  thorns,  fasted  to  the 
verge  of  starvation,  assumed  the  demeanour  of  an  idiot,  be¬ 
came  too  loathsome  for  human  contact,  and  then,  plunging 
into  a  gloomy  cavern,  surrendered  himself  up  to  such  wrest¬ 
lings  with  the  Evil  Spirit,  and  to  such  vicissitudes  of  rap¬ 
ture  and  despair,  that  in  the  storm  of  turbid  passions  his 
reason  had  nearly  given  way.  Friendly  hands  dragged 
him  from  his  hiding-place;  and  hands,  in  intention  at  least, 
not  less  friendly,  recorded  his  feverish  ravings.  At  one 
time  he  conversed  with  voices  audible  to  no  ear  but  his;  at 
another,  he  sought  to  propitiate  Him  before  whom  he  trem¬ 
bled,  by  expiations  which  would  have  been  more  fitly  of¬ 
fered  to  Moloch.  Spiritual  Doctors  ministered  to  his  relief, 
but  they  prescribed  in  vain.  Too  simple  for  their  subtilized 
perception  was  the  simple  truth,  that  in  revealing  himself 
to  mankind  in  the  character  of  a  Father,  that  awful  Being 
has  claimed  as  peculiarly  his  own  the  gentlest,  the  kindest, 
and  the  most  confiding  affections  of  our  nature. 

At  the  verge  of  madness  Ignatius  paused.  That  noble 
intellect  was  not  to  be  whelmed  beneath  the  tempests  in 
which  so  many  have  sunk,  nor  was  his  deliverance  to  be 
accomplished  by  any  vulgar  methods.  Standing  on  the 
steps  of  a  Dominican  church  he  recited  the  office  of  Our 
Lady,  when  suddenly  heaven  itself  was  laid  open  to  the 
eye  of  the  worshipper.  That  ineffable  mystery,  which  the 
author  of  the  Athanasian  creed  has  laboured  to  enunciate  in 


JONATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


317 


words,  was  disclosed  to  him  as  an  object  not  of  faith  but  of 
actual  sight.  The  past  ages  of  the  world  were  rolled  back 
in  his  presence,  and  he  beheld  the  material  fabric  of  things 
rising  into  being,  and  perceived  the  motives  which  had 
prompted  the  exercise  of  the  creative  energy.  To  his  spi¬ 
ritualized  sense  was  disclosed  the  actual  process  by  which 
the  Host  is  transubstantiated;  and  the  other  Christian  veri¬ 
ties  which  it  is  permitted  to  common  men  to  receive  but  as 
exercises  of  their  belief,  now  became  to  him  the  objects  of 
immediate  inspection  and  of  direct  consciousness.  For 
eight  successive  days  his  body  reposed  in  an  unbroken 
trance;  while  his  spirit  thus  imbibed  disclosures  for  which 
the  tongues  of  men  have  no  appropriate  language.  In  a 
volume  of  fourscore  leaves  he  attempted  indeed  to  impart 
them;  but,  dark  with  excess  of  light,  his  words  held  the 
learned  and  the  ignorant  alike  in  speechless  wonder. 

Ignatius  returned  to  this  sublunary  scene  with  a  mission 
not  unmeet  for  an  envoy  from  the  empyrean  world,  of 
which  he  had  thus  become  a  temporary  denizen.  He  re¬ 
turned  to  establish  on  earth  a  theocracy,  of  which  he  should 
himself  be  the  first  administrator,  and  to  which  every  tribe 
and  kindred  of  men  should  be  subject.  He  returned  no  longer 
a  sordid  half-distracted  anchorite,  but,  strange  to  tell,  a  man 
distinguished  not  more  by  the  gigantic  magnitude  of  his 
designs,  than  by  the  clear  good  sense,  the  profound  saga¬ 
city,  the  calm  perseverance,  and  the  flexible  address  with 
which  he  was  to  pursue  them.  History  affords  no  more 
perfect  illustration  how  readily  delirious  enthusiasm  and 
the  shrewdness  of  the  exchange  may  combine  and  harmo¬ 
nize  in  minds  of  the  heroic  order.  A  Swedenborg-Frank- 
lin,  reconciling  in  himself  these  antagonist  propensities,  is 
no  monster  of  the  fancy. 

On  his  restoration  to  human  society,  Ignatius  reap¬ 
peared  in  the  garb,  and  addressed  himself  to  the  occupa¬ 
tions  of  other  religious  men.  The  first  fruits  of  his  labours 
was  the  book  of  which  we  have  transcribed  the  title-page. 
It  was  originally  written  in  Spanish,  and  appeared  in  an 
inaccurate  Latin  version.  By  the  order  of  the  present 
Pope,  Loyola’s  manuscript,  still  remaining  in  the  Vatican, 
has  been  again  translated.  In  this  new  form  the  book  is 
commended  to  the  devout  study  of  the  faithful  by  a  bull  of 
Pope  Paul  III.,  and  by  an  Encyclical  Epistle  from  the 
present  General  of  the  order  of  Jesus.  To  so  august  a 

27* 


318 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


sanction,  slight  indeed  is  the  aid  which  can  be  given  by 
the  suffrage  of  northern  heretics.  Yet  on  this  subject  the 
chair  of  Knox,  if  now  filled  by  himself,  would  not  be  very 
widely  at  variance  with  the  throne  of  St.  Peter.  The 
“Spiritual  Exercises”  form  a  manual  of  what  may  be 
called  “the  act  of  conversion.”  It  proposes  a  scheme  of 
self-discipline  by  which,  in  the  course  of  four  weeks,  that 
mighty  work  is  to  be  accomplished.  In  the  first,  the  peni¬ 
tent  is  conducted  through  a  series  of  dark  retrospects  to 
abase,  and  of  gloomy  prospects  to  alarm  him.  These  ends 
obtained,  he  is  during  the  next  seven  days  to  enrol  himself 
-—such  is  the  military  style  of  the  book — in  the  army  of 
the  faithful,  studying  the  sacred  biography  of  the  Divine 
Leader  of  that  elect  host,  and  choosing  with  extreme 
caution  the  plan  of  life,  religious  or  secular,  in  which 
he  may  be  best  able  to  tread  in  his  steps,  and  to  bear 
the  standard  emblematic  at  once  of  suffering  and  of  con¬ 
quest.  To  sustain  the  soldier  of  the  cross  in  this  protract¬ 
ed  warfare,  his  spiritual  eye  is,  during  the  third  of  his  soli¬ 
tary  weeks,  to  be  fixed  in  a  reverential  scrutiny  into  that 
unfathomable  abyss  of  wo,  into  which  a  descent  was  once 
made  to  rescue  the  race  of  Adam  from  the  grasp  of  their 
mortal  enemies;  and  then  seven  suns  are  to  rise  and  set 
while  the  still  secluded  but  now  disenthralled  spirit  is  to 
chant  triumphant  hallelujahs,  elevating  her  desires  heaven¬ 
ward,  contemplating  glories  hitherto  unimaginable,  and 
mysteries  never  before  revealed;  till  the  sacred  exercises 
close  with  an  absolute  surrender  of  all  the  joys  and  interests 
of  this  sublunary  state,  as  a  holocaust,  to  be  consumed  by 
the  undying  flame  of  divine  love  on  the  altar  of  the  regene¬ 
rate  heart. 

He  must  have  been  deeply  read  in  the  nature  of  man, 
who  should  have  predicted  such  first  fruits  as  these  from  the 
restored  health  of  the  distracted  visionary,  who  had  alter¬ 
nately  sounded  the  base  strings  of  humility  on  earth,  and 
the  living  chords  which  vibrate  with  spontaneous  harmonies 
along  the  seventh  heavens.  A  closer  survey  of  the  book 
will  but  enhance  the  wonder.  To  transmute  profligates 
into  converts,  by  a  process  of  which,  during  any  one  of  her 
revolutions  round  our  planet,  the  moon  is  to  witness  the 
commencement  and  the  close,  might  perhaps  seem  like  a 
plagiarism  from  the  academies  of  Laputa.  ^But  in  his  great, 
and  indeed  his  only  extant  work,  Ignatius  Loyola  is  no 
dreamer.  By  force  of  an  instinct  with  which  such  mind&  as 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


319 


his  alone  are  gifted,  he  could  assume  the  character  to  which 
the  shrewd,  the  practical,  and  the  worldly-wise  aspire,  even 
when  abandoning  himself  to  ecstasies  which  they  are  alike 
unable  to  comprehend  or  to  endure.  His  mind  resembled 
the  body  of  his  great  disciple,  Francis  Xavier,  which,  as 
he  preached  or  baptized,  rose  majestically  towards  the 
skies,  while  his  feet  (the  pious  curiosity  of  his  hearers  as¬ 
certained  the  fact,)  retained  their  firm  hold  on  the  earth  be¬ 
low.  If  the  spiritual  exercises  were  designed  to  excite, 
they  were  not  less  intended  to  control  and  to  regulate,  reli¬ 
gious  sensibilities.  To  exalt  the  spirit  above  terrestrial 
objects  was  scarcely  more  his  aim,  than  to  disenchant  man¬ 
kind  of  the  self-deceits  by  which  that  exaltation  is  usually 
attempted.  The  book,  it  is  true,  indicates  a  tone  of  feeling 
utterly  removed  from  that  which  animates  the  gay  and  the 
busy  scenes  of  life;  but  it  could  not  have  been  written  ex¬ 
cept  by  one  accustomed  to  observe  those  scenes  with  the 
keenest  scrutiny,  and  to  study  the  actors  in  them  with  the 
most  profound  discernment.  To  this  commendation  must 
be  added  the  praise  (to  borrow  terms  but  too  familiar)  of 
evangelical  orthodoxy.  A  Protestant  synod  might  indeed 
have  extracted  from  the  pages  of  Ignatius  many  proposi¬ 
tions  to  anathematize;  but  they  could  also  have  drawn  from 
them  much  to  confirm  the  doctrines  to  which  their  confes¬ 
sions  had  given  such  emphatic  prominency.  If  he  yielded 
to  the  demigods  of  Rome  what  we  must  regard  as  an  idola¬ 
trous  homage,  it  would  be  mere  prejudice  to  deny  that  his 
supreme  adoration  was  reserved  for  that  awful  Being  to 
whom  alone  it  was  due.  If  he  ascribed  to  merely  ritual 
expiations  a  value  of  which  we  believe  them  to  be  altoge¬ 
ther  destitute,  yet  were  all  his  mighty  powers  held  in  the 
most  earnest  and  submissive  affiance  in  the  Divine  Nature, 
as  revealed  under  the  veil  of  human  infirmity  and  of  more 
than  human  suffering.  After  the  lapse  of  two  centuries, 
Philip  Doddridge,  than  whom  no  man  ever  breathed  more 
freely  on  earth  the  atmosphere  of  heaven,  produced  a  work 
of  which  the  Spiritual  Exercises  might  have  afforded  the 
model — so  many  are  still  the  points  of  contact  between 
those  who,  ranging  themselves  round  the  great  object  of 
Christianity  as  their  common  centre,  occupy  the  most  op¬ 
posite  positions  in  that  expanded  circle. 

From  the  publication  of  the  “  Spiritual  Exercises  ”  to 
the  Vow  of  Montmartre,  nine  years  elapsed.  They  wore 


320 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


away  in  pilgrimages,  in  feats  of  asceticism,  in  the  working 
of  miracles,  and  in  escapes  all  but  miraculous,  from  clangers 
which  the  martial  spirit  of  the  saint,  no  less  than  his  piety, 
impelled  him  to  incur.  In  the  caverns  of  Monreza  he  had 
vowed  to  scale  the  heights  of  ‘perfection,'  and  it  therefore 
behooved  him  thus  to  climb  that  obstinate  eminence,  in  the 
path  already  trodden  by  all  the  canonized  and  beatified 
heroes  of  the  church.  But  he  had  also  vowed  to  conduct 
his  fellow-pilgrims  from  the  city  of  destruction  to  the  land 
of  Beulah.  In  prison  and  in  shipwreck,  fainting  with 
hunger  or  wasted  with  disease,  his  inflexible  spirit  still 
brooded  over  that  bright,  though  as  yet  shapeless  vision; 
until  at  length  it  assumed  a  coherent  form  as  he  knelt  on 
the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  traced  the  last  indelible  foot-print 
of  the  ascending  Redeemer  of  mankind.  At  that  hallowed 
spot  had  ended  the  weary  way  of  Him  who  had  bowed  the 
heavens,  and  came  down  to  execute  on  earth  a  mission  of 
unutterable  love  and  matchless  self-denial;  and  there  was 
revealed  to  the  prophetic  gaze  of  the  future  founder  of  the 
order  of  Jesus,  (no  seer-like  genius  kindled  by  high  re¬ 
solves,)  the  long  line  of  missionaries  who,  animated  by  his 
example  and  guided  by  his  instructions,  should  proclaim 
that  holy  name  from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun.  It  was 
indeed  a  futurity  perceptible  only  to  the  telescopic  eye  of 
faith.  At  the  mature  age  of  thirty,  possessing  no  language 
but  his  own,  no  science  but  that  of  the  camp,  and  no  lite¬ 
rature  beyond  the  biographies  of  Paladins  and  of  Saints, 
he  became  the  self-destined  teacher  of  the  future  teachers 
of  the  world.  Hoping  against  hope,  he  returned  to  Barce¬ 
lona,  and  there,  as  the  class-fellow  of  little  children,  com¬ 
menced  the  study  of  the  first  rudiments  of  the  Latin  tongue. 

Among  the  established  facetiae  of  the  stage,  are  the  dis¬ 
tractions  of  dramatic  Eloisas  under  the  tutorship  of  their 
Abelards,  in  the  attempt  to  conjugate  Arno.  Few  play¬ 
wrights,  probably,  have  been  aware  that  the  jest  had  its 
type,  if  not  its  origin,  in  the  scholastic  experiences  of  Igna¬ 
tius  Loyola.  At  the  same  critical  point,  and  in  the  same 
manner,  a  malignant  spirit  arrested  his  advance  in  the  gram¬ 
mar.  On  each  successive  inflection  of  the  verb,  corre¬ 
sponding  elevations  heavenwards  were  excited  in  his  soul 
by  the  demon,  who,  assuming  the  garb  of  an  angel  of  light, 
thus  succeeded  in  disturbing  his  memory.  To  baffle  his 
insidious  enemy,  the  harassed  scholar  implored  the  peda- 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


321 


gogue  to  make  liberal  use  of  that  discipline  of  which  who 
can  ever  forget  the  efficacy  or  the  pain?  The  exorcism 
was  complete.  Amo,  in  all  her  affectionate  moods,  and 
changeful  tenses,  became  familiar  as  household  words. 
Thus  Thomas  a  Kempis  was  made  to  speak  intelligibly. 
Erasmus  also  revealed  his  hidden  treasures  of  learning 
and  wit,  though  ultimately  exiled  from  the  future  schools 
of  the  Jesuits,  for  the  same  offence  of  having  disturbed  the 
thoughts  of  his  devout  reader.  Energy  won  her  accus¬ 
tomed  triumphs,  and,  in  the  year  1528,  he  became  a  stu¬ 
dent  of  the  Humanities,  and  of  what  was  then  called  Phi¬ 
losophy,  at  the  University  of  Paris. 

Of  the  seven  decades  of  human  life,  the  brightest  and 
the  best,  in  which  other  men  achieve  or  contend  for  dis¬ 
tinction,  was  devoted  by  Ignatius  to  the  studies  prepara¬ 
tory  to  his  great  undertaking.  Grave  professors  examined 
him  on  their  preelections,  and,  when  these  were  over,  he 
sought  the  means  of  subsistence  by  traversing  the  Nether¬ 
lands  and  England  as  a  beggar.  Unheeded  and  despised 
as  he  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  learned,  or  solicited  alms  of  the 
rich,  he  was  still  maturing  in  the  recesses  of  his  bosom  de¬ 
signs  more  lofty  than  the  highest  to  which  the  monarchs 
of  the  houses  of  Valois  or  of  Tudor  had  ever  dared  to  as¬ 
pire.  In  the  University  of  Paris  he  at  length  found  the 
means  of  carrying  into  effect  the  cherished  purposes  of  so 
many  years.  It  was  the  heroic  age  of  Spain,  and  the 
countrymen  of  Gonsalvo  and  Cortes  lent  a  willing  ear  to 
counsels  of  daring  on  any  field  of  adventure,  whether  se¬ 
cular  or  spiritual.  His  companions  in  study  thus  became 
his  disciples  in  religion.  Nor  were  his  the  common-place 
methods  of  making  converts.  To  the  contemplative  and  the 
timid,  he  enjoined  hardy  exercises  of  active  virtue.  To 
the  gay  and  ardent,  he  appeared  in  a  spirit  still  more  buoy¬ 
ant  than  their  own.  To  a  debauchee,  whom  nothing  else 
could  move,  he  presented  himself  neck-deep  in  a  pool  of  fro¬ 
zen  water,  to  teach  the  more  impressively  the  duty  of 
subduing  the  carnal  appetites.  To  an  obdurate  priest,  he 
made  a  general  confession  of  his  own  sins,  with  such  ago¬ 
nies  of  remorse  and  shame,  as  to  break  up,  by  force  of 
sympathy,  the  fountains  of  penitence  in  the  bosom  of  the 
confessor.  Nay,  he  even  engaged  at  billiards  with  a  joy¬ 
ous  lover  of  the  game,  on  condition  that  the  defeated  player 
should  serve  his  antagonist  for  a  month;  and  the  victorious 


322 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


saint  enforced  the  penalty  by  consigning  his  adversary  to 
a  month  of  secluded  devotion.  Others  yielded  at  once 
and  without  a  struggle  to  the  united  influence  of  his  sanc¬ 
tity  and  genius;  and  it  is  remarkable  that,  from  these  more 
docile  converts,  he  selected,  with  but  two  exceptions,  the 
original  members  of  his  infant  order.  Having  performed 
the  initiatory  rite  of  the  Spiritual  Exercises,  they  all  swore 
on  the  consecrated  Host  in  the  Crypt  of  St.  Denys,  to  ac¬ 
company  their  spiritual  father  on  a  mission  to  Palestine; 
or,  if  that  should  be  impracticable,  to  submit  themselves  to 
the  vicar  of  Christ,  to  be  disposed  of  as  missionaries  at  his 
pleasure. 

Impetuous  as  had  been  the  temper  of  Ignatius  in  early 
life,  he  had  learned  to  be  patient  of  the  slow  growth  of 
great  designs.  Leaving  his  disciples  to  complete  their  stu¬ 
dies  at  Paris  under  the  care  of  Peter  Faber,  he  returned 
to  Spain  to  recruit  their  number,  to  mature  his  plans,  and, 
perhaps,  to  escape  from  a  too  familiar  intercourse  with  his 
future  subjects.  In  the  winter  of  1536,  they  commenced 
their  pilgrimage  to  the  eternal  city.  Xavier  was  their  lead¬ 
er.  Accomplished  in  all  courtly  exercises,  he  prepared 
for  his  journey  by  binding  tight  cords  round  his  arms  and 
legs,  in  holy  revenge  for  the  pleasure  which  their  graceful 
agility  had  once  afforded  him;  and  pursued  his  way  with 
Spartan  constancy,  till  the  corroded  flesh  closed  obsti¬ 
nately  over  the  ligatures.  Miracle,  the  prompt  handmaid 
of  energies  like  his,  burst  the  bands  which  no  surgeon 
could  extricate;  and  her  presence  was  attested  by  the  toils 
which  his  loosened  limbs  immediately  endured  in  the  me¬ 
nial  service  of  his  fellow  travellers.  At  Venice  they  re¬ 
joined  their  leader,  and  there  employed  themselves  in  mi¬ 
nistering  to  the  patients  in  the  hospitals.  Foremost  in 
every  act  of  intrepid  self-mortification,  Xavier  here  signal¬ 
ized  his  zeal  by  exploits,  the  mere  recital  of  which  would 
derange  the  stomachs  of  ordinary  men.  While  courting 
all  the  physical  tortures  of  purgatory,  his  soul,  however, 
inhaled  the  anticipated  raptures  of  Paradise.  Twice  these 
penances  and  raptures  brought  him  to  the  gates  of  death; 
and,  in  his  last  extremity,  he  caused  himself  to  be  borne 
to  places  of  public  resort,  that  his  ghastly  aspect  might 
teach  the  awful  lessons  which  his  tongue  was  no  longer 
able  to  pronounce. 

Such  prodigies,  whether  enacted  by  the  saints  of  Rome 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


323 


or  by  those  of  Benares,  exhibit  a  sovereignty  of  the  spiri¬ 
tual  over  the  animal  nature,  which  can  hardly  be  contem¬ 
plated  without  some  feelings  akin  to  reverence.  But,  on 
the  whole,  the  hooked  Faqueer  spinning  round  his  gibbet 
is  the  more  respectable  suicide  of  the  two;  for  his  homage 
is,  at  least,  meet  for  the  deity  he  worships.  He  whose 
name  had  been  assumed  by  Ignatius  and  his  followers, 
equally  victorious  over  the  stoical  illusions  and  the  lower 
affections  of  our  nature,  had  been  accustomed  to  seek  repose 
among  the  domestic  charities  of  life,  and  to  aceept  such 
blameless  solaces  as  life  has  to  offer  to  the  weary  and  the 
heavy-laden;  nor  could  services  less  in  harmony  with  his 
serene  self-reverence  have  been  presented  to  him,  than  the 
vehement  emotions,  the  squalid  filth,  and  the  lacerated 
frames  of  the  first  members  of  the  society  of  Jesus.  Loyola 
himself  tolerated,  encouraged,  and  shared  these  extrava¬ 
gances.  His  countenance  was  as  haggard,  his  flagellations 
as  cruel,  and  his  couch  and  diet  as  sordid  as  the  rest.  They 
who  will  conquer  crowns,  whether  ghostly  or  secular,  must 
needs  tread  in  slippery  places.  He  saw  his  comrades 
faint  and  die  with  the  extremity  of  their  sufferings,  and  assu¬ 
ming  the  character  of  an  inspired  prophet,  promoted,  by 
predicting,  their  recovery.  One  of  the  gentlest  and  most 
patient  of  them,  Rodriguez,  flying  for  relief  to  a  solitary 
hermitage,  found  his  retreat  obstructed  by  a  man  of  terrible 
aspect  and  gigantic  stature,  armed  with  a  naked  sword  and 
breathing  menaces.  Hosez,  another  of  his  associates,  hap¬ 
pening  to  die  at  the  moment  when  Ignatius,  prostrate  be¬ 
fore  the  altar,  was  reciting  from  the  Confiteor  the  words, 

‘  et  omnibus  sanctis,’  that  countless  host  was  revealed  to 
the  eye  of  the  saint;  and  among  them,  resplendent  in  glory, 
appeared  his  deceased  friend,  to  sustain  and  animate  the 
hopes  of  his  surviving  brethren.  As  he  journeyed  with 
Jjaynez,  he  saw  a  still  more  awful  vision.  It  exhibited 
that  Being  whom  no  eye  hath  seen,  and  whom  no  tongue 
may  lightly  name,  and  with  him  the  Eternal  Son,  bearing 
a  heavy  cross,  and  uttering  the  welcome  assurance,  “  I  will 
be  propitious  to  you  at  Rome.’9 

These,  however,  were  but  the  auxiliary  and  occasional 
arts  (if  so  they  must  be  termed)  by  which  the  sovereignty  of 
Ignatius  was  established.  It  behooved  him  to  acquire  the  un¬ 
hesitating  submission  of  noble  minds,  ignited  by  a  zeal  as 
intense  and  as  enduring  as  his  own;  and  it  was  on  a  far  lof- 


324 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tier  basis  than  that  of  bodily  penances  or  ecstatic  dreams, 
that  for  ten  successive  years  their  initiatory  discipline  had 
been  conducted.  Wildly  as  their  leader  may  have  de¬ 
scribed  his  survey  of  the  celestial  regions,  and  of  their  tri¬ 
umphant  inmates,  he  had  anxiously  weighed  the  state  of 
the  world  in  which  he  dwelt,  and  the  nature  of  his  fellow' 
sojourners  there.  He  was  intimately  aware  of  the  effects 
on  human  character  of  self-acquaintance,  of  action,  and  of 
suffering.  He  therefore  required  his  disciples  to  scrutinize 
the  recesses  and  the  workings  of  their  own  hearts,  till  the 
aching  sense  found  relief  rather  than  excitement,  in  turning 
from  the  wonders  and  the  shame  within,  to  the  mysteries 
and  the  glories  of  the  world  of  unembodied  spirits.  He 
trained  them  to  ceaseless  activity,  until  the  transmutation 
of  means  into  ends  was  complete;  and  efforts,  at  first  the 
most  irksome,  had  become  spontaneous  and  even  grate¬ 
ful  exercises.  He  accustomed  them  to  every  form  of  pri¬ 
vation  and  voluntary  pain,  until  fortitude,  matured  into 
habit,  had  been  the  source  of  enjoyments,  as  real  as  to  the 
luxurious  they  are  incomprehensible.  He  rendered  them 
stoics,  mystics,  enthusiasts,  and  then  combined  them  all 
into  an  institute,  than  which  no  human  association  was 
ever  more  emphatically  practical,  or  more  to  the  purpose 
and  the  time. 

Of  all  the  occupations  to  which  man  can  devote  the  ear¬ 
lier  years  of  life,  none  probably  leaves  on  the  character  an 
impress  so  deep  and  indelible  as  the  profession  of  arms. 
In  no  other  calling  are  the  whole  range  of  our  sympathetic 
affections,  whether  kindly  or  the  reverse,  called  into  such 
habitual  and  active  exercise;  nor  does  any  other  stimulate 
the  mere  intellectual  powers  with  a  force  so  irresistible, 
when  once  they  are  effectually  aroused  from  their  accus¬ 
tomed  torpor.  Loyola  was  a  soldier  to  the  last  breath  he 
drew,  a  General  whose  authority  none  might  question,  a 
comrade  on  whose  cordiality  all  might  rely,  sustaining  all 
the  dangers  and  hardships  he  exacted  of  his  followers,  and 
in  his  religious  campaigns  a  Strategist  of  consummate  skill 
and  most  comprehensive  survey.  It  was  his  maxim  that 
war  ought  to  be  aggressive,  and  that  even  an  inadequate 
force  might  be  wisely  weakened  by  detachments  on  a 
distant  service,  if  the  prospect  of  success  was  such,  that 
the  vague  and  perhaps  exaggerated  rumour  of  it  would 
strike  terror  into  nearer  foes,  and  animate  the  hopes  of  ir- 


325 


IGNATITJS  LOYOLA  AND  IIIS  ASSOCIATES. 

resolute  allies.  To  conquer  Lutheranism,  by  converting  to 
the  faith  of  Rome  the  barbarous  or  half-civilized  nations 
of  the  earth,  was,  therefore,  among  the  earliest  of  his  pro¬ 
jects;  and  his  searching  eye  had  scanned  the  spirits  of  his 
lieutenants  to  discover  which  of  them  was  best  adapted  for 
enterprises  so  replete  with  difficulty  and  hazard.  It  was 
necessary  that  he  should  select  men  superior,  not  only  to 
all  the  allurements  of  appetite,  and  the  common  infirmities 
of  our  race,  but  superior,  also,  to  those  temptations  to  which 
an  inquisitive  mind  and  abilities  of  a  high  order  expose 
their  possessor.  His  missionaries  must  be  men  prepared 
to  do  and  to  dare,  but  not  much  disposed  to  speculate. 
They  must  burn  with  a  zeal  which  no  sufferings  or  disap¬ 
pointment  could  extinguish;  but  must  not  feel  those  impulses 
which  might  prompt  men  of  large  capacity  to  convert  a  su¬ 
bordinate  into  an  independent  command.  Long  he  weighed, 
and  most  sagaciously  did  he  decide  this  perplexing  choice. 
It  fell  on  many  who  well  fulfilled  these  conditions,  but  on 
none  in  whom  all  the  requisites  for  such  a  service  met  so 
marvellously  as  on  him  who  had  borne  himself  so  bravely 
in  the  chapel  of  St.  Denys,  and  with  such  strange  mortifi¬ 
cations  of  the  flesh  in  the  pilgrimage  to  Rome. 

It  was  in  the  year  1506  that  Francis  Xavier,  the  young¬ 
est  child  of  a  numerous  family,  was  born  in  the  castle  of 
his  ancestors  in  the  Pyrenees.  Robust  and  active,  of  a  gay 
humour  and  ardent  spirit,  the  young  mountaineer  listened 
with  a  throbbing  heart  to  the  military  legends  of  his  House, 
and  to  the  inward  voice  which  spoke  of  days  to  come,  when 
his  illustrious  lineage  should  derive  new  splendour  from 
his  own  achievements.  But  the  hearts  of  his  parents 
yearned  over  the  son  of  their  old  age ;  and  the  enthusiasm 
which  would  have  borne  him  to  the  pursuit  of  glory  in  the 
camp,  was  diverted  by  their  counsels  to  the  less  hazardous 
contest  for  literary  eminence  at  the  university  of  Paris. 
From  the  embrace  of  Aristotle  and  his  commentators,  he 
would,  however,  have  been  prematurely  withdrawn  by  the 
failure  of  his  resources,  (for  the  Lords  of  Xavier  were  not 
wealthy,)  if  a  domestic  prophetess  (his  elder  sister)  had 
not  been  inspired  to  reveal  his  marvellous  career  and  im¬ 
mortal  recompense.  For  a  child  destined  to  have  altars 
raised  to  his  name  throughout  the  Catholic  Church,  and 
masses  chanted  in  his  honour  till  time  should  be  no  longer, 
every  sacrifice  was  wisely  made;  and  he  was  thus  enabled  to 
28 


32 6  Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

• 

struggle  on  at  the  College  of  St.  Barbara,  till  he  had  become 
qualified  to  earn  his  own  maintenance  as  a  public  teacher 
of  Philosophy.  His  Chair  was  crowded  by  the  studious, 
and  his  society  courted  by  the  gay,  the  noble,  and  the  rich. 
It  was  courted,  also,  by  one  who  stood  aloof  from  the 
thronging  multitude;  among  them,  but  not  of  them.  Sor¬ 
did  in  dress  but  of  lofty  bearing,  at  once  unimpassioned 
and  intensely  earnest,  abstemious  of  speech,  yet  occasion¬ 
ally  uttering,  in  deep  and  most  melodious  tones,  words  of 
strange  significance,  Ignatius  Loyola  was  gradually  work¬ 
ing  over  the  mind  of  his  young  companion  a  spell  which 
no  difference  of  taste,  of  habits,  or  of  age,  was  of  power  to 
subdue.  Potent  as  it  was,  the  charm  was  long  resisted. 
Hilarity  was  the  native  and  indispensable  element  of  Fran¬ 
cis  Xavier,  and  in  his  grave  monitor  he  found  an  exhaust¬ 
less  topic  of  mirth  and  raillery.  Armed  with  satire,  which 
was  not  always  playful,  the  light  heart  of  youth  contended, 
as  best  it  might,  against  the  solemn  impressions  which  he 
could  neither  welcome  nor  avoid.  Whether  he  partook  of 
the  frivolities  in  which  he  delighted,  or  in  the  disquisitions 
in  which  he  excelled,  or  traced  the  windings  of  the  Seine 
through  the  forest  which  then  lined  its  banks,  Ignatius  was 
still  at  hand  to  discuss  with  him  the  charms  of  society,  of 
learning,  or  of  nature;  but,  whatever  had  been  the  theme, 
it  was  still  closed  by  the  same  awful  inquiry,  “What  shall 
it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own 
soul?”  The  world  which  Xavier  had  sought  to  gain,  was 
indeed  already  exhibiting  to  him  its  accustomed  treachery. 
It  had  given  him  amusen^ent  and  applause;  but  with  his 
self-government  had  stolen  from  him  his  pupils  and  his 
emoluments.  Ignatius  recruited  both.  He  became  the  eu¬ 
logist  of  the  genius  and  the  eloquence  of  his  friend,  and, 
as  he  presented  to  him  the  scholars  attracted  by  these  pane¬ 
gyrics,  would  repeat  them  in  the  presence  of  the  delighted 
teacher;  and  then,  as  his  kindling  eye  attested  the  sense  of 
conscious  and  acknowledged  merit,  would  check  the  rising 
exultation  by  the  ever-recurring  question,  “  What  shall  it 
profit?”  Improvidence  squandered  these  new  resources; 
but  nothing  could  damp  the  zeal  of  Ignatius.  There  he 
was  again,  though  himself  the  poorest  of  the  poor,  minis¬ 
tering  to  the  wants  of  Xavier,  from  a  purse  filled  by  the 
alms  he  had  solicited;  but  there  again  was  also  the  same 
unvarying  demand,  urged  in  the  same  rich  though  solemn 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


327 


cadence,  “  What  shall  it  profit?”  In  the  unrelaxing  grasp 
of  the  strong  man— at  once  forgiven  and  assisted,  rebuked 
and  beloved  by  his  stern  associate — Xavier  gradually  yielded 
to  the  fascination.  He  became,  like  his  master,  impassive, 
at  least  in  appearance,  to  all  sublunary  pains  and  pleasures; 
and  having  performed  the  initiatory  rite  of  the  Spiritual  Ex¬ 
ercises,  excelled  all  his  brethren  of  the  society  of  Jesus  in 
the  fervour  of  his  devotion  and  the  austerity  of  his  self- 
discipline. 

Whatever  might  have  been  his  reward  in  another  life, 
his  name  .would  have  probably  left  no  trace  in  this  world’s 
records,  if  John  III.  of  Portugal,  resolving  to  plant  the 
Christian  faith  on  the  Indian  territories  which  had  become 
subject  to  the  dominion  or  influence  of  his  crown,  had  not 
petitioned  the  Pope  to  select  some  fit  leader  in  this  peace¬ 
ful  crusade.  On  the  advice  of  Ignatius,  the  choice  of  the 
Holy  Father  fell  on  Francis  Xavier.  A  happier  selection 
could  not  have  been  made,  nor  was  a  summons  to  toil,  to 
suffering,  and  to  death,  ever  so  joyously  received.  In  the 
visions  of  the  night  he  had  often  groaned  under  the  incum¬ 
bent  weight  of  a  wild  Indian,  of  ebon  hue  and  gigantic 
stature,  seated  on  his  shoulders;  and  he  had  often  traversed 
tempestuous  seas,  enduring  shipwreck  and  famine,  persecu¬ 
tion  and  danger,  in  all  their  most  ghastly  forms;  and  as 
each  peril  was  encountered,  his  panting  soul  had  invoked, 
in  still  greater  abundance,  the  means  of  making  such  glo¬ 
rious  sacrifices  for  the  conversion  of  mankind.  When  the 
clearer  sense  and  the  approaching  accomplishment  of  these 
dark  intimations  were  disclosed  to  him,  passionate  sobs  at¬ 
tested  the  rapture  which  his  tongue  could  not  speak.  Light 
of  heart,  and  joyful  in  discourse,  he  conducted  his  fellow- 
pilgrims  from  Rome  to  Lisbon,  across  the  Pyrenees.  As 
he  descended  their  southern  slopes,  there  rose  to  his  sight 
the  towers  where  he  had  enjoyed  the  sports  of  childhood, 
and  woven  the  day-dreams  of  youth;  where  still  lived  the 
mother,  who  for  eighteen  years  had  daily  watched  and 
blessed  him,  and  the  saintly  sister  whose  inspired  voice 
had  foretold  his  high  vocation.  It  was  all  too  high  for  the 
momentary  intrusion  of  the  holiest  of  merely  human  feel¬ 
ings.  He  was  on  his  way  with  tidings  of  mercy  to  a  fallen 
world,  and  he  had  not  one  hour  to  waste,  nor  one  parting 
tear  to  bestow  on  those  whom  he  best  loved  and  most  re¬ 
vered,  and  whom,  in  this  life,  he  could  never  hope  to  meet 
again. 


328 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


We  are  not  left  to  conjecture  in  what  light  his  conduct 
was  regarded.  “  I  care  little,  most  illustrious  doctor,  for 
the  judgment  of  men  and  least  of  all  for  their  judgment  who 
decide  before  they  hear  and  before  they  understand,”  was 
his  half-sportive,  half-indignant  answer  to  the  remonstrances 
of  a  grave  and  well  beneficed  kinsman,  (a  shrewd,  thriving, 
hospitable,  much-respected  man,  no  unlikely  candidate  for 
the  mitre,  and  a  candidate  too,  in  his  own  drowsy  way,  for 
amaranthine  crowns  and  celestial  blessedness,)  who  very 
plausibly  believed  his  nephew  mad.  Mad  or  sober,  he  was 
at  least  impelled  by  a  force,  at  the  first  shock  of  which  the 
united  common  sense  and  respectability  of  mankind  must 
needs  fall  to  pieces — the  force  of  will  concentrated  on  one 
great  end,  and  elevated  above  the  misty  regions  of  doubt, 
into  that  unclouded  atmosphere  where,  attended  by  her 
handmaids,  hope  and  courage,  joy  and  fortitude,  Faith  con¬ 
verts  the  future  into  the  present,  and  casts  the  brightest  hues 
over  objects  the  most  repulsive  to  human  sense,  and  the 
most  painful  to  our  feeble  nature. 

As  the  vessel  in  which  Xavier  embarked  for  India  fell 
down  the  Tagus  and  shook  out  her  reefs  to  the  wind,  many 
an  eye  was  dimmed  with  unwonted  tears;  for  she  bore  a 
regiment  of  a  thousand  men  to  re-enforce  the  garrison  of 
Goa;  nor  could  the  bravest  of  that  gallant  host  gaze  on  the 
receding  land  without  foreboding  that  he  might  never  see 
again  those  dark  chestnut  forests  and  rich  orange  groves, 
with  the  peaceful  convents  and  the  long-loved  homes  re¬ 
posing  in  their  bosom.  The  countenance  of  Xavier  alone 
beamed  with  delight.  He  knew  that  he  should  never  tread 
his  native  mountains  more;  but  he  was  not  an  exile.  He 
was  to  depend  for  food  and  raiment  on  the  bounty  of  his 
fellow-passengers;  but  no  thought  for  the  morrow  tioubled 
him.  He  was  going  to  convert  nations,  of  which  he  knew 
neither  the  language  nor  even  the  names;  but  he  felt  no 
misgivings.  Worn  by  incessant  sea-sickness,  with  the  re¬ 
fuse  food  of  the  lowest  seamen  for  his  diet,  and  the  cordage 
of  the  ship  for  his  couch,  he  rendered  to  the  diseased  ser¬ 
vices  too  revolting  to  be  described;  and  lived  among  the 
dying  and  the  profligate  the  unwearied  minister  of  conso¬ 
lation  and  of  peace.  In  the  midst  of  that  floating  throng, 
he  knew  how  to  create  for  himself  a  sacred  solitude,  and 
how  to  mix  in  all  their  pursuits  in  the  free  spirit  of  a  man 
of  the  world,  a  gentleman,  and  a  scholar.  With  the  vice- 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


329 


roy  and  his  officers  he  talked,  as  pleased  them  best,  of  war 
or  trade,  of  politics  or  navigation;  and  to  restrain  the  com¬ 
mon  soldiers  from  gambling,  would  invent  for  their  amuse¬ 
ment  less  dangerous  pastimes,  or  even  hold  the  stakes  for 
which  they  played,  that  by  his  presence  and  his  gay  dis¬ 
course  he  might  at  least  check  the  excesses  which  he  could 
not  prevent. 

Five  weary  months  (weary  to  all  but  him)  brought  the 
ship  to  Mozambique,  where  an  endemic  fever  threatened 
a  premature  grave  to  the  apostle  of  the  Indies.  But  his 
was  not  a  spirit  to  be  quenched  or  allayed  by  the  fiercest 
paroxysms  of  disease.  At  each  remission  of  his  malady, 
he  crawled  to  the  beds  of  his  fellow-sufferers  to  soothe  their 
terrors  or  assuage  their  pains.  To  the  eye  of  any  casual  ob¬ 
server  the  most  wretched  of  mankind,  in  the  esteem  of  his 
companions  the  happiest  and  the  most  holy,  he  reached  Goa 
just  thirteen  months  after  his  departure  from  Lisbon. 

At  Goa,  Xavier  was  shocked,  and  had  fear  been  an  ele¬ 
ment  in  his  nature,  would  have  been  dismayed,  by  the  al¬ 
most  universal  depravity  of  the  inhabitants.  It  exhibited 
itself  in  those  offensive  forms  which  characterize  the  crimes 
of  civilized  men  when  settled  among  a  feebler  race,  and  re¬ 
leased  from  even  the  conventional  decencies  of  civilization. 
Swinging  in  his  hand  a  large  bell,  he  traversed  the  streets 
of  the  city,  and  implored  the  astonished  crowd  to  send  their 
children  to  him,  to  be  instructed  in  the  religion  which  they 
still  at  least  professed.  Though  he  had  never  been  ad¬ 
dressed  by  the  soul-stirring  name  of  father,  he  knew  that  in 
the  hardest  and  the  most  dissolute  heart  which  had  once 
felt  the  parental  instinct,  there  is  one  chord  which  can 
never  be  wholly  out  of  tune.  A  crowd  of  little  ones  were 
quickly  placed  under  his  charge.  He  lived  among  them  as 
the  most  laborious  of  teachers,  and  the  gentlest  and  the 
gayest  of  friends;  and  then  returned  them  to  their  homes, 
that  by  their  more  hallowed  example  they  might  there  im¬ 
part,  with  all  the  unconscious  eloquence  of  filial  love,  the 
lessons  of  wisdom  and  of  piety  they  had  been  taught.  No 
cry  of  human  misery  reached  him  in  vain.  He  became 
an  inmate  of  the  hospitals,  selecting  that  of  the  leprous 
as  the  object  of  his  peculiar  care.  Even  in  the  haunts  of 
debauchery,  and  at  the  tables  of  the  profligate,  he  was  to 
be  seen  an  honoured  and  a  welcome  guest;  delighting  that 
most  unmeet  audience  with  the  vivacity  of  his  discourse, 

28* 


330 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


and  sparing  neither  pungent  jests  to  render  vice  ridiculous, 
nor  sportive  flatteries  to  allure  the  fallen  back  to  the  still 
distasteful  paths  of  soberness  and  virtue.  Strong  in  purity 
of  purpose,  and  stronger  still  in  one  sacred  remembrance, 
he  was  content  to  be  called  the  friend  of  publicans  and  sin¬ 
ners.  He  had  in  truth  long  since  deserted  the  standard  of  pru¬ 
dence,  the  offspring  of  forethought,  for  the  banners  of  wis¬ 
dom,  the  child  of  love,  and  followed  them  through  perils 
not  to  be  hazarded  under  any  less  triumphant  leader. 

Rugged  were  the  ways  along  which  he  was  thus  con¬ 
ducted.  In  those  times,  as  in  our  own,  there  was  on 
the  Malabar  coast  a  pearl  fishery,  and  then,  as  now,  the 
pearl-divers  formed  a  separate  and  a  degraded  caste.  It  was 
not  till  after  a  residence  of  twelve  months  at  Goa,  that 
Xavier  heard  of  these  people.  He  heard  that  they  were 
ignorant  and  miserable,  and  he  inquired  no  farther.  On 
that  burning  shore  his  bell  once  more  rang  out  an  invi¬ 
tation  of  mercy,  and  again  were  gathered  around  him 
troops  of  inquisitive  and  docile  children.  For  fifteen 
months  he  lived  among  these  abject  fishermen,  his  only 
food  their  rice  and  water,  reposing  in  their  huts,  and  allow¬ 
ing  himself  but  three  hours’  sleep  in  the  four-and-twenty. 
He  became  at  once  their  physician,  the  arbiter  in  their  dis¬ 
putes,  and  their  advocate  for  the  remission  of  their  annual 
tribute  with  the  government  of  Goa,  The  bishop  of  that 
city  had  assisted  him  with  two  interpreters;  but  his  impas¬ 
sioned  spirit  struggled,  and  not  in  vain,  for  some  more  di¬ 
rect  intercourse  with  the  objects  of  his  care.  Committing 
to  memory  translations,  at  the  time  unintelligible  to  him¬ 
self,  of  the  creeds  and  other  symbols  of  his  faith,  he  recited 
them  with  tones  and  gestures,  which  spoke  at  once  to  the 
senses  and  to  the  hearts  of  his  disciples.  All  obstacles 
yielded  to  his  restless  zeal.  He  soon  learned  to  converse, 
to  preach,  and  to  write  in  their  language.  Many  an  hum¬ 
ble  cottage  was  surmounted  by  a  crucifix,  the  mark  of  its 
consecration;  and  many  a  rude  countenance  reflected  the 
sorrows  and  the  hopes  which  they  had  been  taught  to  as¬ 
sociate  with  that  sacred  emblem.  “I  have  nothing  to  add,” 
(the  quotation  is  from  one  of  the  letters  which  at  this  time 
he  wrote  to  Loyola,)  “but  that  they  who  came  forth  to  la¬ 
bour  for  the  salvation  of  idolaters,  receive  from  on  high 
such  consolations,  that  if  there  be  on  earth  such  a  thing  as 
happiness,  it  is  theirs.” 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


331 


If  there  be  such  a  thing,  it  is  but  as  the  checkered  sun¬ 
shine  of  a  vernal  day.  A  hostile  inroad  from  Madura  over¬ 
whelmed  the  poor  fishermen  who  had  learned  to  call  Xavier 
their  father,  threw  down  their  simple  chapels,  and  drove 
them  for  refuge  to  the  barren  rocks  and  sand-banks  which 
line  the  western  shores  of  the  strait  of  Manar.  But  their 
father  was  at  hand  to  share  their  affliction,  to  procure  for 
them  from  the  viceroy  at  Goa  relief  and  food,  and  to  direct 
their  confidence  to  a  still  more  powerful  Father,  whose 
presence  and  goodness  they  might  adore  even  amidst  the 
wreck  of  all  their  earthly  treasures. 

It  was  a  lesson  not  unmeet  for  those  on  whom  such  trea¬ 
sures  had  been  bestowed  in  the  most  ample  abundance; 
and  Xavier  advanced  to  Travancore,  to  teach  it  there  to  the 
Rajah  and  his  courtiers.  No  facts  resting  on  remote  hu¬ 
man  testimony  can  be  more  exempt  from  doubt  than  the 
general  outline  of  the  tale  which  follows.  A  solitary,  poor, 
and  unprotected  stranger,  he  burst  through  the  barriers 
which  separate  men  of  different  tongues  and  races;  and 
with  an  ease  little  less  than  miraculous,  established  for  him¬ 
self  the  means  of  interchanging  thoughts  with  the  people 
of  the  east.  They  may  have  ill-gathered  his  meaning,  but 
by  some  mysterious  force  of  sympathy  they  soon  caught 
his  ardour.  Idol  temples  fell  by  the  hands  of  their  former 
worshippers.  Christian  churches  rose  at  his  bidding;  and 
the  kingdom  of  Travancore  was  agitated  with  new  ideas 
and  unwonted  controversies.  The  Brahmins  argued — as 
the  Church  by  law  established  has  not  seldom  argued — 
with  fire  and  sword,  and  the  interdict  of  earth  and  water  to 
the  enemies  of  their  repose.  A  foreign  invader  threw  a 
still  heavier  sword  into  the  trembling  scales.  From  the 
southward  appeared  on  the  borders  of  Travancore  the 
same  force  which  had  swept  away  the  poor  fishermen  of 
Malabar.  Some  embers  of  Spanish  chivalry  still  glowed 
in  the  bosom  of  Xavier.  He  flew  to  the  scene  of  the  ap¬ 
proaching  combat,  and  there,  placing  himself  in  the  van  of 
the  protecting  army,  poured  forth  a  passionate  prayer  to 
the  Lord  of  Hosts,  raised  on  high  his  crucifix,  and  with 
kindling  eyes,  and  far-resounding  voice,  delivered  the  be¬ 
hests  of  Heaven  to  the  impious  invaders.  So  runs  the  tale, 
and  ends  (it  is  almost  superfluous  to  add)  in  the  rout  of 
the  astounded  foe.  It  is  a  matter  of  less  animated,  and  per¬ 
haps  of  more  authentic  history,  that  for  his  services  in  this 


332 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


war  Xavier  was  rewarded  by  the  unbounded  gratitude  of 
the  Rajah,  was  honoured  with  the  title  of  his  Great  Father, 
and  rescued  from  all  farther  Erahminical  persecution. 

Power  and  courtly  influence  form  an  intoxicating  draught 
even  when  raised  to  the  lips  of  an  ascetic  and  a  saint.  Holy 
as  he  was,  the  Great  Father  of  the  Rajah  of  Travancore  seems 
not  entirely  to  have  escaped  this  feverish  thirst.  Don  Al- 
phonso  de  Souza,  a  weak  though  amiable  man,  was  at  that 
time  the  Viceroy  of  Portuguese  India,  and  Xavier  (such 
was  now  his  authority)  despatched  a  messenger  to  Lisbon 
to  demand,  rather  than  to  advise  his  recall.  Within  the 
limits  of  his  high  commission,  (and  what  subject  is  wholly 
foreign  to  it?)  the  ambassador  of  the  King  of  Kings  may 
owe  respect,  but  hardly  deference,  to  any  mere  earthly 
monarch.  So  argued  Francis,  so  judged  King  John,  and 
so  fell  Alphonso  de  Souza,  as  many  a  greater  statesman  has 
fallen,  and  may  yet  fall,  under  the  weight  of  sacerdotal  dis¬ 
pleasure.  This  weakness,  however,  was  not  his  only  re¬ 
corded  fault.  Towards  the  northern  extremity  of  Ceyloji 
lies  the  island  of  Manar,  a  dependency,  in  Xavier’s  day, 
of  the  adjacent  kingdom  of  Jaffna,  where  then  reigned  a 
sort  of  oriental  Philip  II.  The  islanders  had  become  con¬ 
verts  to  the  Christian  faith,  and  expiated  their  apostacy  by 
their  lives.  Six  hundred  men,  women,  and  children,  fell 
in  one  royal  massacre;  and  the  tragedy  was  closed  by  the 
murder  of  the  eldest  son  of  the  King  of  Jaffna,  by  his  father’s 
orders.  Deposition  in  case  of  misgovernment,  and  the 
transfer  to  the  deposing  Power  of  the  dominions  of  the  of¬ 
fender,  was  no  invention  of  Hastings,  or  of  Clive.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  ancient  constitutional  maxims  of  the  Euro¬ 
pean  dynasties  in  India.  It  may  even  boast  the  venerable 
suffrage  of  St.  Francis  Xavier.  At  his  instance,  De  Souza 
equipped  an  armament  to  hurl  the  guilty  ruler  of  Jaffna 
from  his  throne,  and  to  subjugate  his  territories  to  the  most 
faithful  King.  In  the  invading  fleet  the  indignant  saint  led 
the  way,  with  promises  of  triumphs,  both  temporal  and 
eternal.  But  the  expedition  failed.  Cowardice  or  treache¬ 
ry  defeated  the  design.  De  Souza  paid  the  usual  penalties 
of  ill  success.  Xavier  sailed  away  to  discover  other  fields 
of  spiritual  warfare. 

On  the  Coromandel  coast,  near  the  city  of  Meliapor, 
might  be  seen  in  those  times  the  oratory  and  the  tomb  of 
St.  Thomas,  the  first  teacher  of  Christianity  in  India.  It 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


333 


was  in  a  cool  and  sequestered  grotto  that  the  apostle  had 
been  wont  to  pray;  and  there  yet  appeared  on  the  living 
rock,  in  bold  relief,  the  cross  at  which  he  knelt,  with  a 
crystal  fountain  of  medicinal  waters  gushing  from  the  base 
of  it.  On  the  neighbouring  height,  a  church  with  a  marble 
altar,  stained,  after  the  lapse  of  fifteen  centuries,  with  the 
blood  of  the  martyr,  ascertained  the  sacred  spot  at  which 
his  bones  had  been  committed  to  the  dust.  To  this  vene¬ 
rable  shrine  Xavier  retired,  to  learn  the  will  of  Heaven 
concerning  him.  If  we  may  believe  the  oath  of  one  of  his 
fellow-pilgrims,  he  maintained,  on  this  occasion,  for  seven 
successive  days  an  unbroken  fast  and  silence-— -no  unfit  pre¬ 
paration  for  his  approaching  conflicts.  Even  around  the 
tomb  of  the  apostle  malignant  demons  prowl  by  night;  and, 
though  strong  in  the  guidance  of  the  Virgin,  Xavier  not 
only  found  himself  in  their  obscene  grasp,  but  received 
from  them  blows,  such  as  no  weapons  in  human  hands 
could  have  inflicted,  and  which  had  nearly  brought  to  a 
close  his  labours  and  his  life.  Baffled  by  a  superior  power, 
the  fiends  opposed  a  still  more  subtle  hinderance  to  his  de¬ 
signs  against  their  kingdom.  In  the  garb,  and  in  the  out¬ 
ward  semblance  of  a  band  of  choristers,  they  disturbed  his 
devotions  by  such  soul-subduing  strains,  that  the  very  har¬ 
monies  of  heaven  might  seem  to  have  been  awakened  to 
divert  the  Christian  warrior  from  his  heavenward  path.  All 
in  vain  their  fury  and  their  guile.  He  found  the  direction 
he  implored,  and  the  first  bark  which  sailed  from  the  Coro¬ 
mandel  shore  to  the  city  of  Malacca,  bore  the  obedient  mis¬ 
sionary  to  that  great  emporium  of  eastern  commerce. 

Thirty  years  before  the  arrival  of  Xavier,  Malacca  had 
been  conquered  by  Alphonso  Albuquerque.  It  was  a  place 
abandoned  to  every  form  of  sensual  and  enervating  indul¬ 
gence.  Through  her  crowded  streets  a  strange  and  so¬ 
lemn  visiter  passed  along,  pealing  his  faithful  bell,  and  ear¬ 
nestly  imploring  the  prayers  of  the  faithful  for  that  guilty 
people.  Curiosity  and  alarm  soon  gave  way  to  ridicule; 
but  Xavier’s  panoply  was  complete.  The  messenger  of 
divine  wrath  judged  this  an  unfit  occasion  for  courting 
aversion  or  contempt.  He  became  the  gayest  of  the  gay, 
and,  in  address  at  least,  the  very  model  of  an  accomplished 
cavalier.  Foiled  at  their  own  weapons,  his  dissolute  coun¬ 
trymen  acknowledged  the  irresistible  authority  of  a  self- 
devotion  so  awful,  relieved  and  embellished  as  it  was  by 


334 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


every  social  grace.  Thus  the  work  of  reformation  pros¬ 
pered,  or  seemed  to  prosper.  Altars  rose  in  the  open 
streets,  the  confessional  was  thronged  by  penitents,  trans¬ 
lations  of  devout  books  were  multiplied;  and  the  saint,  fore¬ 
most  in  every  toil,  applied  himself  with  all  the  activity  of 
his  spirit  to  study  the  structure  and  the  graceful  pronun¬ 
ciation  of  the  Malayar  tongue.  But  the  plague  was  not  thus 
to  be  stayed.  A  relapse  into  all  their  former  habits  filled 
up  the  measure  of  their  crimes.  With  prophetic  voice 
Xavier  announced  the  impending  chastisements  of  Heaven; 
and,  shaking  off  from  his  feet  the  dust  of  the  obdurate  city, 
pursued  his  indefatigable  way  to  Amboyna, 

That  Island,  then  a  part  of  the  vast  dominions  of  Por¬ 
tugal  in  the  east,  had  scarcely  witnessed  the  commence¬ 
ment  of  Xavier’s  exertions,  when  a  fleet  of  Spanish  vessels 
appeared  in  hostile  array  on  the  shores.  They  were  in¬ 
vaders,  and  even  corsairs;  for  their  expedition  had  been 
disavowed  by  Charles  V.  Pestilence,  however,  was  raging 
among  them;  and  Xavier  was  equally  ready  to  hazard 
his  life  in  the  cause  of  Portugal,  or  in  the  service  of  her  af¬ 
flicted  enemies.  Day  and  night  he  lived  in  the  infected 
ships,  soothing  every  spiritual  distress,  and  exerting  all  the 
magical  influence  of  his  name  to  procure  for  the  sick  what¬ 
ever  might  contribute  to  their  recovery  or  soothe  their 
pains.  The  coals  of  fire,  thus  heaped  on  the  heads  of 
the  pirates,  melted  hearts  otherwise  steeled  to  pity;  and  to 
Xavier  belonged  the  rare,  perhaps  the  unrivalled,  glory  of 
repelling  an  invasion  by  no  weapons  but  those  of  self-denial 
and  love. 

But  glory,  the  praise  of  men  or  their  gratitude,  what 
were  these  to  him?  As  the  Spaniards  retired  peacefully 
from  Amboyna,  he,  too,  quitted  the  half-adoring  multitude, 
whom  he  had  rescued  from  the  horrors  of  a  pirates’  war, 
and,  spurning  all  the  timid  counsel  which  would  have 
stayed  his  course,  proceeded,  as  the  herald  of  good  tidings, 
to  the  half  barbarous  islands  of  the  neighbouring  Archipela¬ 
go.  “  If  those  lands,”  such  was  his  indignant  exclamation, 
“had  scented  woods  and  mines  of  gold,  Christians  would 
find  courage  to  go  there;  nor  would  all  the  perils  of  the 
world  prevent  them.  They  are  dastardly  and  alarmed,  be¬ 
cause  there  is  nothing  to  be  gained  there  but  the  souls  of 
men,  and  shall  love  be  less  hardy  and  less  generous  than 
avarice?  They  will  destroy  me,  you  say,  by  poison.  It 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  IIIS  ASSOCIATES. 


335 


is  an  honour  to  which  such  a  sinner  as  I  am  may  not  as¬ 
pire;  but  this  I  dare  to  say,  that  whatever  form  of  torture 
or  of  death  awaits  me,  I  am  ready  to  suffer  it  ten  thousand 
times  for  the  salvation  of  a  single  soul.”  Nor  was  this  the 
language  of  a  man  insensible  to  the  sorrows  of  life,  or  re¬ 
ally  unaffected  by  the  dangers  he  had  to  incur.  “  Believe 
me,  my  beloved  brethren,”  (we  quote  from  a  letter  written 
by  him  at  this  time  to  the  Society  at  Rome,)  “  it  is  in  ge¬ 
neral  easy  to  understand  the  evangelical  maxim,  that  he  who 
will  lose  his  life  shall  find  it.  But  when  the  moment  of  action 
has  come,  and  when  the  sacrifice  of  life  for  God  is  to  be 
really  made,  oh  then,  clear  as  at  other  times  the  meaning 
is,  it  becomes  deeply  obscure!  so  dark,  indeed,  that  he 
alone  can  comprehend  it,  to  whom,  in  his  mercy,  God  him¬ 
self  interprets  it.  Then  it  is  we  know  how  weak  and  frail 
we  are. 

Weak  and  frail  he  may  have  been;  but  from  the  days  of 
Paul  of  Tarsus  to  our  own,  the  annals  of  mankind  exhibit 
no  other  example  of  a  soul  borne  onward  so  triumphantly 
through  distress  and  danger,  in  all  their  most  appalling  as¬ 
pects.  He  battled  with  hunger,  and  thirst,  and  nakedness, 
and  assassination,  and  pursued  his  mission  of  love,  with 
even  increasing  ardour,  amidst  the  wildest  war  of  the  con¬ 
tending  elements.  At  the  island  of  Moro  (one  of  the  group 
of  the  Moluccas)  he  took  his  stand  at  the  foot  of  a  volcano; 
and  as  the  pillar  of  fire  threw  up  its  wreaths  to  heaven,  and 
the  earth  tottered  beneath  him,  and  the  firmament  was  rent 
by  falling  rocks  and  peals  of  unintermitting  thunder,  he 
pointed  to  the  fierce  lightnings,  and  the  river  of  molten 
lava,  and  called  on  the  agitated  crowd  which  clung  to  him 
for  safety,  to  repent,  and  to  obey  the  truth;  but  he  also 
taught  them  that  the  sounds  which  racked  their  ears  were 
the  groans  of  the  infernal  world,  and  the  sights  which 
blasted  their  eyes,  an  outbreak  from  the  atmosphere  of  the 
place  of  torment.  Repairing  for  the  celebration  of  mass 
to  some  edifice  which  he  had  consecrated  for  the  purpose, 
an  earthquake  shook  the  building  to  its  base.  The  terrified 
worshippers  fled;  but  Xavier,  standing  in  meek  composure 
before  the  rocking  altar,  deliberately  completed  that  myste¬ 
rious  sacrifice,  with  a  faith  at  least  in  this  instance  envia¬ 
ble,  in  the  real  presence;  rejoicing,  as  he  states  in  his  de¬ 
scription  of  the  scene,  to  perceive  that  the  demons  of  the 
island  thus  attested  their  flight  before  the  archangel’s  sword, 


336 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


from  the  place  where  they  had  so  long  exercised  their  foul 
dominion.  There  is  no  school-boy  of  our  days  who  could 
not  teach  much,  unsuspected  by  Francis  Xavier,  of  the  laws 
which  govern  the  material  and  the  spiritual  worlds;  nor 
have  we  many  doctors  who  know  as  much  as  he  did  of 
the  nature  of  Him  by  whom  the  worlds  of  matter  and  of 
spirit  were  created;  for  he  studied  in  the  school  of  pro¬ 
tracted  martyrdom  and  active  philanthropy,  where  are  di¬ 
vulged  secrets  unknown  and  unimagined  by  the  wisest  and 
the  most  learned  of  ordinary  men.  Imparting  every  where 
such  knowledge  as  he  possessed,  he  ranged  over  no  small 
part  of  the  Indian  archipelago,  and  at  length  retraced  his 
steps  to  Malacca,  if  even  yet  his  exhortations  and  his 
prayers  might  avert  her  threatened  doom. 

It  appeared  to  be  drawing  nigh.  Alaradin,  a  Mohamedan 
chief  of  Sumatra,  had  laid  siege  to  the  place  at  the  head 
of  a  powerful  fleet  and  army.  Ill-provided  for  defence  by 
land,  the  Portuguese  garrison  was  still  more  unprepared  for 
a  naval  resistance.  Seven  shattered  barks,  unfit  for  ser¬ 
vice,  formed  their  whole  maritime  strength.  Universal 
alarm  overspread  the  city,  and  the  governor  himself  at  once 
partook  and  heightened  the  general  panic.  Already, 
thoughts  of  capitulation  had  become  familiar  to  the  be¬ 
sieged,  and  European  chivalry  had  bowed  in  abject  silence 
to  the  insulting  taunts  and  haughty  menaces  of  the  Moslem. 
At  this  moment,  in  his  slight  and  weather-beaten  pinnace, 
the  messenger  of  peace  on  earth  effected  an  entrance  into 
the  beleaguered  harbour.  But  he  came  with  a  loud  and  in¬ 
dignant  summons  to  the  war;  for  Xavier  was  still  a  Spanish 
cavalier,  and  he  “  thought  it  foul  scorn  ”  that  gentlemen, 
subjects  of  the  most  faithful  King,  should  thus  be  bearded 
by  barbaric  enemies,  and  the  worshippers  of  Christ  defied 
by  the  disciples  of  the  Arabian  impostor.  He  assumed  the 
direction  of  the  defence.  By  his  advice  the  seven  disman¬ 
tled  ships  were  promptly  equipped  for  sea.  He  assigned 
to  each  a  commander;  and  having  animated  the  crews  with 
promises  of  both  temporal  and  eternal  triumphs,  despatched 
them  to  meet  and  conquer  the  hostile  fleet.  As  they  sailed 
from  the  harbour  the  admiral’s  vessel  ran  aground  and  in¬ 
stantly  became  a  wreck.  Returning  hope  and  exultation 
as  promptly  gave  way  to  terror;  and  Xavier,  the  idol  of  the 
preceding  hour,  was  now  the  object  of  popular  fury.  He 
alone  retained  his  serenity.  He  upbraided  the  cowardice 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


337 


of  the  governor,  revived  the  spirits  of  the  troops,  and  en¬ 
couraged  the  multitude  with  prophecies  of  success.  Again 
the  flotilla  sailed,  and  a  sudden  tempest  drove  it  to  sea. 
Day  after  day  passed  without  intelligence  of  its  safety: 
once  more  the  hearts  of  the  besieged  failed  them.  Rumours 
of  defeat  were  rife;  the  Mahomedans  had  effected  a  landing 
within  six  leagues  of  the  city,  and  Xavier’s  name  was  re¬ 
peated  from  mouth  to  mouth  with  cries  of  vengeance.  He 
knelt  before  the  altar,  the  menacing  people  scarcely  re¬ 
strained  by  the  sanctity  of  the  place  from  immolating  him 
there  as  a  victim  to  his  own  disastrous  counsels.  On  a 
sudden  his  bosom  was  seen  to  heave  as  with  some  deep 
emotion;  he  raised  aloft  his  crucifix,  and  with  a  glowing 
eye,  and  in  tones  like  one  possessed,  breathed  a  short  yet 
passionate  prayer  for  victory.  A  solemn  pause  ensued; 
the  dullest  eye  could  see  that  within  that  now  fainting, 
pallid,  agitated  frame,  some  power  more  than  human  was 
in  communion  with  the  weak  spirit  of  man.  What  might 
be  the  ineffable  sense  thus  conveyed  from  mind  to  mind, 
without  the  aid  of  symbols  or  of  words!  One  half  hour  of 
deep  and  agonizing  silence  held  the  awe-stricken  assembly 
in  breathless  expectation — when,  bounding  on  his  feet,  his 
countenance  radiant  with  joy,  and  his  voice  clear  and  ring- 
ingas  with  the  swelling  notes  of  the  trumpet,  he  exclaimed, 
“  Christ  has  conquered  for  us!  At  this  very  moment  his 
soldiers  are  charging  our  defeated  enemies;  they  have  made 
a  great  slaughter — we  have  lost  only  four  of  our  defend¬ 
ers.  On  Friday  next  the  intelligence  will  be  here,  and  we 
shall  then  see  our  fleet  again.”  The  catastrophe  of  such  a 
tale  need  not  be  told.  Malacca  followed  her  deliverer,  and 
the  troops  of  the  victorious  squadron,  in  solemn  procession 
to  the  church,  where,  amidst  the  roar  of  cannon,  the  peal¬ 
ing  of  anthems,  and  hymns  of  adoring  gratitude,  his  inward 
sense  heard  and  reverenced  that  inarticulate  voice  which 
still  reminded  him,  that  for  him  the  hour  of  repose  and  tri¬ 
umph  might  never  come,  till  he  should  reach  that  state 
where  sin  would  no  longer  demand  his  rebuke,  nor  grief 
his  sympathy.  He  turned  from  the  half-idolatrous  shouts 
of  an  admiring  people,  and  retraced  his  toilsome  way  to 
the  shores  of  Coromandel. 

He  returned  to  Goa  a  poor  and  solitary,  but  no  longer 
an  obscure  man.  From  the  Indus  to  the  Yellow  Sea,  had 
gone  forth  a  vague  and  marvellous  rumour  of  him.  The 
29 


338 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


tale  bore  that  a  stranger  had  appeared  in  the  semblance  of 
a  way-worn,  abject  beggar,  who,  by  some  magic  influence, 
and  for  some  inscrutable  ends,  had  bowed  the  nations  to 
his  despotic  will,  while  spurning  the  wealth,  the  pleasures, 
and  the  homage  which  they  offered  to  their  conqueror. 
Many  were  the  wonders  which  travellers  had  to  tell  of  his 
progress,  and  without  number  the  ingenious  theories  afloat 
for  the  solution  of  them.  He  possessed  the  gift  of  ubiquity, 
could  at  the  same  moment  speak  in  twenty  different  tongues, 
on  as  many  dissimilar  subjects,  was  impassive  to  heat, 
cold,  hunger,  and  fatigue,  held  hourly  intercourse  with  in¬ 
visible  beings,  the  guides  or  ministers  of  his  designs,  raised 
the  dead  to  life,  and  could  float,  when  it  so  pleased  him, 
across  the  boiling  ocean  on  the  wings  of  the  typhoon. 
Among  the  listeners  to  these  prodigies  had  been  Auger,  a 
native  and  inhabitant  of  Japan.  His  conscience  was  bur¬ 
dened  with  the  memory  of  great  crimes,  and  he  had  sought 
relief  in  vain  from  many  an  expiatory  rite,  and  from  the 
tumults  of  dissipation.  In  search  of  the  peace  he  could 
not  find  at  home,  he  sailed  to  Malacca,  there  to  consult 
with  the  mysterious  person  of  whose  avatur  he  had  heard. 
But  Xavier  was  absent,  and  the  victim  of  remorse  was  re¬ 
tracing  his  melancholy  voyage  to  Japan,  when  a  friendly 
tempest  arrested  his  retreat,  and  once  more  brought  him  to 
Malacca.  He  was  attended  by  two  servants,  and  with 
them,  by  Xavier’s  directions,  he  proceeded  to  Goa.  In 
these  three  Japanese,  his  prophetic  eye  had  at  once  seen 
the  future  instruments  of  the  conversion  of  their  native 
land;  and  to  that  end  he  instructed  them  to  enter  on  a  sys¬ 
tematic  course  of  training  in  a  college,  which  he  had  es¬ 
tablished  for  such  purposes,  at  the  seat  of  Portuguese  em¬ 
pire  in  the  east.  At  that  place  Xavier,  erelong,  rejoined 
his  converts.  Such  had  been  their  proficiency,  that  soon 
after  his  arrival  they  were  admitted  not  only  into  the  church 
by  baptism,  but  into  the  society  of  Jesus,  by  the  perform¬ 
ance  of  the  spiritual  exercises. 

The  history  of  Xavier  now  reaches  a  not  unwelcome 
pause.  He  pined  for  solitude  and  silence.  He  had  been 
too  long  in  constant  intercourse  with  man,  and  found  that, 
however  high  and  holy  may  be  the  ends  for  which  social 
life  is  cultivated,  the  habit,  if  unbroken,  will  impair  that 
inward  sense  through  which  alone  the  soul  can  gather  any 
true  intimations  of  her  nature  and  her  destiny.  He  retired 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


339 


to  commune  with  himself  in  a  seclusion  where  the  works 
of  God  alone  were  to  be  seen,  and  where  no  voices  could  be 
heard  but  those  which,  in  each  varying  cadence,  raise  an 
unconscious  anthem  of  praise  and  adoration  to  their  Creator. 
There  for  awhile  reposing  from  labours  such  as  few  or 
any  other  of  the  sons  of  men  have  undergone,  he  consumed 
days  and  weeks  in  meditating  prospects  beyond  the  reach 
of  any  vision  unenlarged  by  the  habitual  exercise  of  be¬ 
neficence  and  piety.  There,  too,  it  may  be,  (for  man  must 
still  be  human,)  he  surrendered  himself  to  dreams  as  base¬ 
less,  and  to  ecstasies  as  devoid  of  any  real  meaning,  as  those 
which  haunt  the  cell  of  the  maniac.  Peace  be  to  the  hal¬ 
lucinations,  if  such  they  were,  by  which  the  giant  refreshed 
his  slumbering  powers,  and  from  which  he  roused  himself 
to  a  conflict  never  again  to  be  remitted  till  his  frame,  yielding 
to  the  ceaseless  pressure,  should  sink  into  a  premature  but 
hallowed  grave. 

Scarcely  four  years  had  elapsed  from  the  first  discovery 
of  Japan  by  the  Portuguese,  when  Xavier,  attended  by 
Auger  and  his  two  servants,  sailed  from  Goa  to  convert  the 
islanders  to  the  Christian  faith.  Much  good  advice  had 
been,  as  usual,  wasted  on  him  by  his  friends.  To  Loyola 
alone  he  confided  the  secret  of  his  confidence.  “I  cannot 
express  to  you  ”  (such  are  his  words)  “  the  joy  with  which 
I  undertake  this  long  voyage;  for  it  is  full  of  extreme  perils, 
and  we  consider  a  fleet  sailing  to  Japan  as  eminently  pros¬ 
perous  in  which  one  ship  out  of  four  is  saved.  Though 
the  risk  far  exceeds  any  which  I  have  hitherto  encountered, 
I  shall  not  decline  it;  for  our  Lord  has  imparted  to  me  an 
interior  revelation  of  the  rich  harvest  which  will  one  day 
be  gathered  from  the  cross  when  once  planted  there.” 
Whatever  may  be  the  thought  of  these  voices  from  within, 
it  is  at  least  clear,  that  nothing  magnanimous  or  sublime 
has  ever  yet  proceeded  from  those  who  have  listened  only 
to  the  voices  from  without.  But,  as  if  resolved  to  show 
that  a  man  may  at  once  act  on  motives  incomprehensible 
to  his  fellow  mortals,  and  possess  the  deepest  insight  into 
the  motives  by  which  they  are  habitually  governed,  Xavier 
left  behind  him  a  code  of  instructions  for  his  brother  mission¬ 
aries,  illuminated  in  almost  every  page  by  that  profound 
sagacity  which  results  from  the  union  of  extensive  know¬ 
ledge  with  acute  observation,  mellowed  by  the  intuitive 
wisdom  of  a  compassionate  and  lowly  heart.  The  science 


340 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


of  self-conquest,  with  a  view  to  conquer  the  stubborn  will 
of  others,  the  act  of  winning  admission  for  painful  truth,  and 
the  duties  of  fidelity  and  reverence  in  the  attempt  to  heal 
the  diseases  of  the  human  spirit,  were  never  taught  by  un¬ 
inspired  man  with  an  eloquence  more  gentle,  or  an  autho¬ 
rity  more  impressive.  A  long  voyage,  pursued  through 
every  disaster  which  the  malevolence  of  man  and  demons 
could  oppose  to  his  progress,  (for  he  was  constrained  to 
sail  in  a  piratical  ship,  with  idols  on  her  deck  and  whirl¬ 
winds  in  her  path,)  brought  him,  in  the  year  1549,  to  Japan, 
there  to  practise  his  own  lessons,  and  to  give  a  new  exam¬ 
ple  of  heroic  perseverance. 

His  arrival  had  been  preceded  by  what  he  regarded  as 
fortunate  auguries.  Certain  Portuguese  merchants,  who 
had  been  allowed  to  reside  at  the  principal  seaport,  inha¬ 
bited  there  a  house  haunted  by  spectres.  Their  presence 
was  usually  announced  by  the  din  of  discordant  and  agoni¬ 
zing  dreams;  but  when  revealed  to  the  eye,  presented  forms 
resembling  those  which  may  be  seen  in  pictures  of  the  in¬ 
fernal  state.  Now  the  merchants,  secular  men  though 
they  were,  had  exorcised  these  fiends  by  carrying  the  cross 
in  solemn  procession  through  the  house;  and  anxious  curi¬ 
osity  pervaded  the  city  for  some  explanation  of  the  virtue 
of  this  new  and  potent  charm.  There  were  also  legends 
current  through  the  country  which  might  be  turned  to  good 
account.  Xaca,  the  son  of  Amida,  the  Virgo  Deipara  of 
Japan,  had  passed  a  life  of  extreme  austerity  to  expiate  the 
sins  of  men,  and  had  inculcated  a  doctrine  in  which  even 
Christians  must  recognise  a  large  admixture  of  sacred  truth. 
Temples  in  honour  of  the  mother  and  child  overspread  the 
land,  and  suicidal  sacrifices  were  daily  offered  in  them. 
The  Father  of  Lies  had  farther  propped  up  his  kingdom  in 
Japan  by  a  profane  parody  on  the  institutions  of  the  Catho¬ 
lic  church.  Under  the  name  of  the  Saco,  there  reigned  in 
sacerdotal  supremacy  a  counterpart  of  the  holy  father  at 
Home,  who  consecrated  the  Fundi  or  Bishops  of  this  Japa¬ 
nese  hierarchy,  and  regulated  at  his  infallible  will  whatever 
related  to  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  public  worship.  Su¬ 
bordinate  to  the  Fundi  were  the  Bonzes  or  Priests  in  holy 
orders,  who,  to  complete  the  resemblance,  taught,  and  at 
least  professed  to  practise,  an  ascetic  discipline.  But  here 
the  similitude  ceases;  for,  adds  the  Chronicle,  they  were 
great  knaves  and  sad  hypocrites. 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  IIIS  ASSOCIATES. 


341 


With  these  foundations  on  which  to  build,  the  ideas 
which  Xavier  had  to  introduce  into  the  Japanese  mind, 
might  not  very  widely  jar  with  those  by  which  they  were 
preoccupied.  Auger,  now  called  Paul  of  the  Holy  Faith, 
was  despatched  to  his  former  friend  and  sovereign,  with  a 
picture  of  the  Virgin  and  the  infant  Jesus,  and  the  mo¬ 
narch  and  his  courtiers  admired,  kissed,  and  worshipped 
the  sacred  symbols.  Xavier  himself  (to  use  his  own  words) 
stood  by,  a  mere  mute  statue;  but  there  was  Promethean 
fire  within,  and  the  marble  soon  found  a  voice.  Of  all  his 
philological  miracles,  this  was  the  most  stupendous.  He 
who,  in  the  decline  of  life,  bethinks  him  of  all  that  he  once 
endured  to  unlock  the  sense  of  iEschylus,  and  is  conscious 
how  stammering  has  been  the  speech  with  which,  in  later 
days,  he  has  been  wont  to  mutilate  the  tongues  of  Pascal 
and  of  Tasso,  may*  think  it  a  fable  that  in  a  few  brief  weeks 
Xavier  could  converse  and  teach  intelligibly  in  the  involved 
and  ever-shifting  dialects  of  Japan.  Perhaps,  had  the  sceptic 
ever  studied  to  converse  with  living  men  under  the  impulse 
of  some  passion  which  had  absorbed  every  faculty  of  his 
soul,  he  might  relax  his  incredulity;  but,  whatever  be  the 
solution,  the  fact  is  attested  on  evidence  which  it  would  be 
folly  to  discredit — that  within  a  very  short  time  Xavier  be¬ 
gan  to  open  to  the  Japanese,  in  their  own  language  and  to 
their  perfect  understanding,  the  commission  with  which  he 
was  charged.  Such,  indeed,  was  his  facility  of  speech, 
that  he  challenged  the  Bonzes  to  controversies  on  all  the 
mysterious  points  of  their  and  his  conflicting  creeds.  The 
arbiters  of  the  dispute  listened  as  men  are  apt  to  listen 
to  the  war  of  words,  and  many  a  long-tailed  Japanese  head 
was  shaken,  as  if  in  the  hope  that  the  jumbling  thoughts 
within  would  find  their  level  by  the  oft-repeated  oscillation. 
It  became  necessary  to  resort  to  other  means  of  winning 
their  assent;  and  in  exploits  of  asceticism,  Xavier  had 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  rivalry  of  Bonzes,  of  Fundi,  or  of 
the  great  Saco  himself.  Cangoxima  acknowledged,  as  most 
other  luxurious  cities  would  perhaps  acknowledge,  that  he 
who  had  such  a  mastery  of  his  own  appetites  and  passions, 
must  be  animated  by  some  power  wholly  exempt  from  that 
debasing  influence.  To  fortify  this  salutary  though  not 
very  sound  conclusion,  Xavier  betook  himself,  (if  we  may 
believe  his  historian,)  to  the  working  of  miracles.  He 
compelled  the  fish  to  fill  the  nets  of  the  fishermen,  and  to 

29* 


342 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


frequent  the  bay  of  Cangoxima,  though  previously  indis¬ 
posed  to  do  so.  He  cured  the  leprous,  and  he  raised  the 
dead.  Two  Bonzes  became  the  first,  and  indeed  the  only 
fruits  of  his  labours.  The  hearts  of  their  brethren  grew 
harder  as  the  light  of  truth  glowed  with  increasing  but  in¬ 
effectual  brightness  around  them.  The  King  also  withdrew 
his  favour,  and  Xavier,  with  two  companions,  carried  the 
rejected  messages  of  mercy  to  the  neighbouring  states  of 
the  Japanese  empire. 

Carrying  on  his  back  his  only  viaticum,  the  vessels  re¬ 
quisite  for  performing  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  he  advanced 
to  Firando,  at  once  the  seaport  and  the  capital  of  the  king¬ 
dom  of  that  name.  Some  Portuguese  ships,  riding  at  an¬ 
chor  there,  announced  his  arrival  in  all  the  forms  of  nautical 
triumph — flags  of  every  hue  floating  from  the  masts,  sea¬ 
men  clustering  on  the  yards,  cannon  roaring  from  beneath, 
and  trumpets  braying  from  above.  Firando  was  agitated 
with  debate  and  wonder;  all  asked,  but  none  could  afford, 
an  explanation  of  the  homage  rendered  by  the  wealthy  tra¬ 
ders  to  the  meanest  of  their  countrymen.  It  was  given  by 
the  humble  pilgrim  himself,  surrounded  in  the  royal  pre¬ 
sence  by  all  the  pomp  which  the  Europeans  could  display 
in  his  honour.  Great  was  the  effect  of  these  auxiliaries  to 
the  work  of  an  evangelist;  and  the  modern,  like  the  ancient 
Apostle,  ready  to  become  all  things  to  all  men,  would  no 
longer  decline  the  abasement  of  assuming  for  a  moment 
the  world’s  grandeur,  when  he  found  that  such  puerile  acts 
might  allure  the  children  of  the  world  to  listen  to  the  voice 
of  wisdom.  At  Meaco,  then  the  seat  of  empire  in  Japan, 
the  discovery  might  be  reduced  to  practice  with  still  more 
important  success,  and  thitherwards  his  steps  were  promptly 
directed. 

Unfamiliar  to  the  ears  of  us  barbarians  of  the  North- 
Western  Ocean  are  the  very  names  of  the  seats  of  Japanese 
civilization  through  which  his  journey  lay.  At  Amanguchi, 
the  capital  of  Nagolo,  he  found  the  hearts  of  men  hardened 
by  sensuality,  and  his  exhortations  to  repentance  were  re¬ 
paid  by  showers  of  stones  and  insults.  “A  pleasant  sort 
of  Bonze,  indeed,  who  would  allow  us  but  one  God  and 
one  woman!”  was  the  summary  remark  with  which  the 
luxurious  Amanguchians  disposed  of  the  teacher  and  his 
doctrine.  They  drove  him  forth  half  naked,  with  no  pro¬ 
vision  but  a  bag  of  parched  rice,  and  accompanied  only  by 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES, 


343 


three  of  his  converts,  prepared  to  share  his  danger  and  his 
reproach. 

It  was  in  the  depth  of  winter,  dense  forests,  steep  moun¬ 
tains,  half-frozen  streams,  and  wastes  of  untrodden  snow, 
lay  in  his  path  to  Meaco.  An  entire  month  was  consumed 
in  traversing  the  wilderness,  and  the  cruelty  and  scorn 
of  man  not  seldom  adding  bitterness  to  the  rigours  of  na¬ 
ture.  On  one  occasion  the  wanderers  were  overtaken  in 
a  thick  jungle  by  a  horseman  bearing  a  heavy  package. 
Xavier  offered  to  carry  the  load,  if  the  rider  would  requite 
the  service  by  pointing  out  his  way.  The  offer  was  ac¬ 
cepted,  but  hour  after  hour  the  horse  was  urged  on  at  such 
a  pace,  and  so  rapidly  sped  the  panting  missionary  after 
him,  that  his  tortured  feet  and  excoriated  body  sank  in 
seeming  death  under  the  protracted  effort.  In  the  extre¬ 
mity  of  his  distress  no  repining  word  was  ever  heard  to  fall 
from  him.  He  performed  this  dreadful  pilgrimage  in  si¬ 
lent  communion  with  Him  for  whom  he  rejoiced  to  suffer 
the  loss  of  all  things;  or  spoke  only  to  sustain  the  hope  and 
courage  of  his  associates.  At  length  the  walls  of  Meaco 
were  seen,  promising  a  repose  not  ungrateful  even  to  his 
adamantine  frame  and  fiery  spirit.  But  repose  was  no 
more  to  visit  him.  He  found  the  city  in  all  the  tumult  and 
horrors  of  a  siege.  It  was  impossible  to*  gain  attention  to 
his  doctrines  amidst  the  din  of  arms;  for  even  the  Saco  or 
Pope  of  Japan  could  give  heed  to  none  but  military  topics. 
Chanting  from  the  Psalmist — When  Israel  went  out  of 
Egypt  and  the  house  of  Jacob  from  a  strange  people,  the 
Saint  again  plunged  into  the  desert,  and  retraced  his  steps 
to  Amanguchi. 

Xavier  describes  the  Japanese  very  much  as  a  Roman 
might  have  depicted  the  Greeks  in  the  age  of  Augustus,  as 
at  once  intellectual  and  sensual  voluptuaries;  on  the  best  pos¬ 
sible  terms  with  themselves,  a  good-humoured  but  faithless 
race,  equally  acute  and  frivolous,  talkative  and  disputatious 
— “  Their  inquisitiveness,”  he  says,  “  is  incredible,  espe¬ 
cially  in  their  intercourse  with  strangers,  for  whom  they 
have  not  the  slightest  respect,  but  make  incessant  sport  of 
them.”  Surrounded  at  Amanguchi,  by  a  crowd  of  these 
babblers,  he  was  plied  with  innumerable  questions  about 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  movements  of  the  planets, 
eclipses,  the  rainbow — sin,  grace,  paradise,  and  hell.  He 
heard  and  answered.  A  single  response  solved  all  these 


344 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


problems.  Astronomers,  meteorologists,  metaphysicians, 
and  divines,  all  heard  the  same  sound;  but  to  each  it  came 
with  a  different  and  an  appropriate  meaning.  So  wrote  from 
the  very  spot  Father  Anthony  Quadros  four  years  after  the 
event;  and  so  the  fact  may  be  read  in  the  process  of  Xa¬ 
vier’s  canonization.  Possessed  of  so  admirable  a  gift,  his 
progress  in  the  conversion  of  these  once  contemptuous 
people  is  the  less  surprising.  Their  city  became  the  prin¬ 
cipal  seat  of  learning  in  Japan,  and  of  course,  therefore,  the 
great  theatre  of  controversial  debate.  Of  these  polemics 
there  remains  a  record  of  no  doubtful  authenticity,  from 
which  disputants  of  higher  name  than  those  of  Amanguchi 
might  take  some  useful  lessons  in  the  dialectic  art. 
Thrusts,  better  made  or  more  skilfully  parried,  are  sel¬ 
dom  to  be  witnessed  in  the  schools  of  Oxford  or  of  Cam¬ 
bridge. 

In  the  midst  of  controversies  with  men,  Xavier  again 
heard  that  inward  voice  to  which  he  never  answered  but 
by  instant  and  unhesitating  submission.  It  summoned  him 
to  Fucheo,  the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Bungo;  a  city 
near  the  sea,  and  having  for  its  port  a  place  called  Figer, 
where  a  rich  Portuguese  merchant  ship  was  then  lying. 
At  the  approach  of  the  Saint  (for  such  he  was  now  univer¬ 
sally  esteemed)  the  vessel  thundered  from  all  her  guns  such 
loud  and  repeated  discharges,  that  the  startled  sovereign 
despatched  messengers  from  Fucheo  to  ascertain  the  cause 
of  so  universal  an  uproar.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  as¬ 
tonishment  with  which  they  received  the  explanation.  It 
was  impossible  to  convey  to  the  monarch’s  ear  so  extrava¬ 
gant  a  tale.  A  royal  salute  for  the  most  abject  of  lazars — 
for  a  man,  to  use  their  own  energetic  language — “  so  ab¬ 
horred  of  the  earth,  that  the  very  vermin  which  crawled  over 
him  loathed  their  wretched  fare.”  If  mortal  man  ever  rose 
or  sunk  so  far  as  to  discover,  without  pain,  that  his  person 
was  the  object  of  disgust  to  others,  then  is  there  one  form 
of  self-dominion  in  which  Francis  Xavier  has  been  sur¬ 
passed.  Yielding  with  no  perceptible  reluctance  to  the 
arguments  of  his  countrymen,  and  availing  himself  of  the 
resources  at  their  command,  he  advanced  to  Fucheo,  pre¬ 
ceded  by  thirty  Portuguese  clad  in  rich  stuffs,  and  embel¬ 
lished  with  chains  of  gold  and  precious  stones.  “  Next 
came,  and  next  did  go,”  in  their  gayest  apparel,  the  ser¬ 
vants  and  slaves  of  the  merchants.  Then  appeared  the 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  IUS  ASSOCIATES. 


345 


apostle  of  the  Indies  himself,  resplendent  in  green  velvet 
and  golden  brocade.  Chinese  tapestry,  and  silken  flags  of 
every  brilliant  colour,  covered  the  pinnace  and  the  boats  in 
which  they  were  rowed  up  to  the  city,  and  the  oars  rose  and 
fell  to  the  sound  ofitrumpets,  flutes,  and  hautboys.  As  the 
procession  drew  near  to  the  royal  presence,  the  commander 
of  the  ship  marched  bareheaded,  and  carrying  a  wand  as 
the  esquire  or  major-domo  of  the  Father.  Five  others  of 
her  principal  officers,  each  bearing  some  cosily  article, 
stepped  along,  as  proud  to  do  such  service;  while  he,  in 
honour  of  whom  it  was  rendered,  moved  onwards  with  the 
majestic  gait  of  some  feudal  chieftain  marshalling  his  re¬ 
tainers,  with  a  rich  umbrella  over  him.  He  traversed  a 
double  file  of  six  hundred  men-at-arms  drawn  up  for  his 
reception,  and  interchanged  complimentary  harangues  with 
his  royal  host,  with  all  the  grace  and  dignity  of  a  man  ac¬ 
customed  to  shine  in  courts,  and  to  hold  intercourse  with 
Princes. 

His  Majesty  of  Bungo  seems  to  have  borne  some  re¬ 
semblance  to  our  own  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  to  have 
been  meditating  a  revolt  from  the  Saco  and  his  whole  spi¬ 
ritual  dynasty.  Mucli  he  said  at  the  first  interview,  to 
which  no  orthodox  Bonze  could  listen  with  composure.  It 
drew  down  even  on  his  royal  head  the  rebuke  of  the  learned 
Faxiondono.  “  How,”  exclaimed  that  eminent  divine, 
“  dare  you  undertake  the  decision  of  any  article  of  faith 
without  having  studied  at  the  university  of  Fianzima,  where 
alone  are  to  be  learned  the  sacred  mysteries  of  the  gods! 
If  you  are  ignorant,  consult  the  doctors  appointed  to  teach 
you.  Here  am  I,  ready  to  impart  to  you  all  necessary 
instruction.  Anticipating  the  slow  lapse  of  three  centu¬ 
ries,  the  very  genius  of  a  university  of  still  higher  pre¬ 
tensions  than  that  of  Fianzima  breathed  through  the  lips  of 
the  sage  Faxiondono.  But  the  great  “  Tractarian”  of  Bungo 
provoked  replies  most  unlike  those  by  which  his  modern 
successors  are  assailed.  Never  was  King  surrrounded  by 
a  gayer  circle  than  that  which  then  glittered  at  the  court 
of  Fucheo.  The  more  the  Bonze  lectured  on  his  own 
sacerdotal  authority,  the  more  laughed  they.  The  King 
himself  condescended  to  aid  the  general  merriment,  and 
congratulated  his  monitor  on  the  convincing  proof  he  had 
given  of  his  heavenly  mission,  by  the  display  of  an  infernal 
temper.  To  Xavier  he  addressed  himself  in  a  far  diflerent 


346 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


spirit.  On  his  head  the  triple  crown  might  have  lighted 
without  allaying  the  thirst  of  his  soul  for  the  conversion  of 
mankind;  and  the  European  pomp  with  which  he  was  for 
the  moment  environed,  left  him  still  the  same  living  mar¬ 
tyr  to  the  faith  it  was  his  one  object  to  diffuse.  His  rich 
apparel,  and  the  blandishments  of  the  great,  served  only  to 
present  to  him,  in  a  new  and  still  more  impressive  light,  the 
vanity  of  all  sublunary  things.  He  preached,  catechised, 
and  disputed,  with  an  ardour  and  perseverance  which 
threatened  his  destruction,  and  alarmed  his  affectionate  fol¬ 
lowers.  “  Care  not  for  me,”  was  his  answer  to  their  ex¬ 
postulations;  “  think  of  me  as  a  man  dead  to  bodily  com¬ 
forts.  My  food,  my  rest,  my  life,  are  to  rescue,  from  the 
granary  of  Satan,  the  souls  for  whom  God  has  sent  me 
hither  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.”  To  such  fervour  the 
Bonzes  of  Fucheo  could  offer  no  effectual  resistance.  One 
of  the  most  eminent  of  their  number  cast  away  his  idols 
and  became  a  Christian.  Five  hundred  of  his  disciples 
immediately  followed  his  example.  The  King  himself,  a 
dissolute  unbeliever,  was  moved  so  far  (and  the  concessions 
of  the  rulers  of  the  earth  must  be  handsomely  acknow¬ 
ledged)  as  to  punish  the  crimes  he  still  practisedpand  to 
confess  that  the  very  face  of  the  Saint  was  as  a  mirror,  re¬ 
flecting  by  the  force  of  contrast  all  the  hideousness  of  his 
own  vices.  Revolting,  indeed,  they  were,  and  faithful 
were  the  rebukes  of  the  tongue,  no  less  than  the  counte¬ 
nance  of  Xavier.  A  royal  convert  was  about  to  crown  his 
labours,  and  the  worship  of  Xaca  and  Amida  seemed 
waning  to  its  close.  It  was  an  occasion  which  demanded 
every  sacrifice;  nor  was  the  demand  unanswered. 

For  thirty  years  the  mysteries  of  the  faith  of  the  Bonzes 
had  been  taught  in  the  most  celebrated  of  their  colleges,  by 
a  Doctor  who  had  fathomed  all  divine  and  human  lore;  and 
who,  except  when  he  came  forth  to  utter  the  oracular  voice 
of  more  than  earthly  wisdom,  withdrew  from  the  sight  of 
men  into  a  sacred  retirement,  there  to  hold  high  converse 
with  the  immortals.  Fucarondono,  for  so  he  was  called, 
announced  his  purpose  to  visit  the  city  and  palace  of  Fu¬ 
cheo.  As  when,  in  the  agony  of  Agamemnon’s  camp,  the 
son  of  Thetis  at  length  grasped  his  massive  spear,  and  the 
trembling  sea-shores  resounded  at  his  steps — so  advanced 
to  the  war  of  words  the  great  chieftain  of  Japanese  theology, 
and  so  rose  the  cry  of  anticipated  triumph  from  the  rescued 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


347 


Bonzes.  Terror  seized  the  licentious  King  himself,  and  all 
foreboded  the  overthrow  of  Xavier  and  Christianity.  “  Do 
you  know,  or  rather,  do  you  remember  me?”  was  the  inquiry 
with  which  this  momentous  debate  was  opened.  “  I  never 
saw  you  till  now,”  answered  the  Saint.  “A  man  who  has 
dealt  with  me  a  thousand  times,  and  who  pretends  never 
to  have  seen  me,  will  be  no  difficult  conquest,”  rejoined 
the  most  profound  of  the  Bonzes.  “  Have  you  left  any  of 
the  goods  which  I  bought  of  you  at  the  port  of  Frenajona?” 
— “I  was  never  a  merchant,”  said  the  missionary,  “  nor 
was  I  ever  at  Frenajona.”— ■“  What  a  wretched  memory!” 
was  the  contemptuous  reply;  “  it  is  precisely  five  hundred 
years  to-day  since  you  and  I  met  at  that  celebrated  mart, 
when,  by  the  same  token,  you  sold  me  a  hundred  pieces 
of  silk,  and  an  excellent  bargain  I  had  of  it.”  From  the 
transmigration  of  the  soul  the  sage  proceeded  to  unfold  the 
other  dark  secrets  of  nature — such  as  the  eternity  of  matter, 
the  spontaneous  self-formation  of  all  organized  beings,  and 
the  progressive  cleansing  of  the  human  spirit  in  the  nobler 
and  holier,  until  they  attain  to  a  perfect  memory  of  the  past, 
and  are  enabled  to  retrace  their  wanderings  from  one  body 
to  another  through  all  preceding  ages — looking  down  from 
the  pinnacles  of  accumulated  wisdom  on  the  grovelling  mul¬ 
titude,  whose  recollections  are  confined  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  their  latest  corporeal  existence.  That  Xavier  re¬ 
futed  these  perplexing  arguments,  we  are  assured  by  a  Por¬ 
tuguese  by-stander  who  witnessed  the  debate;  though  un¬ 
happily  no  record  of  his  arguments  has  come  down  to  us. 
“I  have,”  says  the  historian,  “neither  science  nor  pre¬ 
sumption  enough  to  detail  the  subtle  and  solid  reasonings 
by  which  the  Saint  destroyed  the  vain  fancies  of  the 
Bonze.” 

Yet  the  victory  was  incomplete.  Having  recruited  his 
shattered  forces,  and  accompanied  by  no  less  than  three 
thousand  Bonzes,  Fucarondono  returned  to  the  attack.  On 
his  side,  Xavier  appeared  in  the  field  of  controversy  attended 
by  the  Portuguese  officers  in  their  richest  apparel.  They 
stood  uncovered  in  his  presence,  and  knelt  when  they  ad¬ 
dressed  him.  Their  dispute  now  turned  on  many  a  knotty 
point; — as,  for  example,  Why  did  Xavier  celebrate  masses 
for  the  dead,  and  yet  condemn  the  orthodox  Japanese  cus¬ 
tom  of  giving  to  the  Bonze  bills  of  exchange  payable  in 
their  favour?  So  subtle  and  difficult  were  their  inquiries, 


348 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


that  Xavier  and  his  companion,  the  reporter  of  the  dispute, 
were  compelled  to  believe  that  the  spirit  of  evil  had  sug¬ 
gested  them;  and  that  they  were  successfully  answered  is 
ascribed  to  the  incessant  prayers  which,  during  the  whole 
contest,  the  Christians  offered  for  their  champion.  Of  this 
second  polemical  campaign  we  have  a  minute  and  animated 
account.  It  may  be  sufficient  to  extract  the  conclusion  of 
the  royal  Moderator.  “  For  my  own  part,”  he  said,  “  as 
far  as  I  can  judge,  I  think  that  Father  Xavier  speaks  ra¬ 
tionally,  and  that  the  rest  of  you  don’t  know  what  you  are 
talking  about.  Men  must  have  clear  heads  or  less  violence 
than  you  have  to  understand  these  difficult  questions.  If 
you  are  deficient  in  faith,  at  least  employ  your  reason, 
which  might  teach  you  not  to  deny  truths  so  evident;  and 
do  not  bark  like  so  many  dogs.”  So  saying,  the  King  of 
Fungo  dissolved  the  assembly.  Royal  and  judicious  as 
his  award  appears  to  have  been,  our  Portuguese  chronicler 
admits  that  the  disputants  on  either  side  returned  with  opi¬ 
nions  unchanged;  and  that,  from  that  day  forward,  the 
work  of  conversion  ceased.  He  applies  himself  to  find  a 
solution  of  the  problem,  why  men  who  had  been  so  egre- 
giously  refuted  should  still  cling  to  their  errors,  and  why 
they  should  obstinately  adhere  to  practices  so  irrefragably 
proved  to  be  alike  foolish  and  criminal.  The  answer,  let 
us  hope,  is,  that  the  obstinacy  of  the  people  of  Fungo  was 
a  kind  of  lusus  naturse, ,  a  peculiarity  exclusively  their  own; 
that  other  religious  teachers  are  more  candid  than  the  Bonzes 
of  Japan,  and  that  no  Professor  of  Divinity  could  elsewhere 
be  found  so  obstinately  wedded  to  his  own  doctrines  as  was 
the  learned  Fucarondono. 

In  such  controversies,  and  in  doing  the  work  of  an  evan¬ 
gelist  in  every  other  form,  Xavier  saw  the  third  year  of  his 
residence  at  Japan  gliding  away,  when  tidings  of  perplexi¬ 
ties  at  the  mother  church  of  Goa  recalled  him  thither;  across 
seas  so  wide  and  stormy,  that  even  the  sacred  lust  of  gold 
hardly  braved  them  in  that  infancy  of  the  art  of  navigation. 
As  his  ship  drove  before  the  monsoon,  dragging  after  her 
a  smaller  bark  which  she  had  taken  in  tow,  the  connecting 
ropes  were  suddenly  burst  asunder,  and  in  a  few  minntes 
the  two  vessels  were  no  longer  in  sight.  Thrice  the  sun 
rose  and  set  on  their  dark  course,  the  unchained  elements 
roaring  as  in  mad  revelry  around  them,  and  the  ocean, 
seething  like  a  caldron.  Xavier’s  shipmates  wept  over 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


349 


the  loss  of  friends  and  kindred  in  the  foundered  bark,  and 
shuddered  at  their  own  approaching  doom.  He  also  wept; 
but  his  were  grateful  tears.  As  the  screaming  whirlwind 
swept  over  the  abyss,  the  present  deity  was  revealed  to  his 
faithful  worshipper,  shedding  tranquillity,  and  peace,  and 
joy  over  the  sanctuary  of  a  devout  and  confiding  heart. 
“  Mourn  not,  my  friend,”  was  his  gay  address  to  Edward 
de  Gama,  as  he  lamented  the  loss  of  his  brother  in  the  bark; 
“  before  three  days,  the  daughter  will  have  returned  to  her 
mother.”  They  were  weary  and  anxious  days;  but,  as  the 
third  drew  towards  a  close,  a  sail  appeared  in  the  horizon. 
Defying  the  adverse  winds,  she  made  straight  towards  them, 
and  at  last  dropped  alongside,  as  calmly  as  the  sea-bird  ends 
her  flight,  and  furls  her  ruffled  plumage  on  the  swelling 
surge.  The  cry  of  miracle  burst  from  every  lip;  and  well 
it  might.  There  was  the  lost  bark,  and  not  the  bark  only, 
but  Xavier  himself  on  board' her!  What  though  he  had 
ridden  out  the  tempest  in  the  larger  vessel,  the  stay  of  their 
drooping  spirits,  he  had  at  the  same  time  been  in  the  smaller 
ship,  performing  there  also  the  same  charitable  office;  and 
yet,  when  the  two  hailed  and  spoke  each  other,  there  was 
but  one  Francis  Xavier,  and  he  composedly  standing  by 
the  side  of  Edward  de  Gama  on  the  deck  of  the  “  Holy 
Cross.”  Such  was  the  name  of  the  commodore’s  vessel. 
For  her  services  on  this  occasion,  she  obtained  a  sacred 
charter  of  immunity  from  risks  of  every  kind;  and  as  long 
as  her  timbers  continued  sound,  bounded  merrily  across 
seas  in  which  no  other  craft  could  have  lived. 

During  this  wondrous  voyage,  her  deck  had  often  been 
paced  in  deep  conference  by  Xavier  and  Jago  de  Pereyra, 
lier  commander.  Though  he  pursued  the  calling  of  a  mer¬ 
chant,  he  had,  says  the  historian,  the  heart  of  a  prince.  Two 
great  objects  expanded  the  thoughts  of  Pereyra — the  one, 
the  conversion  of  the  Chinese  empire;  the  other,  his  own 
appointment  as  ambassador  to  the  celestial  court  at  Pekin. 
In  our  puny  days,  the  dreams  of  traders  in  the  east  are  of 
smuggling  opium.  But  in  the  sixteenth  century,  no  enter¬ 
prise  appeared  to  them  too  splendid  to  contemplate,  or  too 
daring  to  hazard.  Before  the  “  Holy  Cross  ”  had  reached 
Goa,  Pereyra  had  pledged  his  whole  fortune,  Xavier  his 
influence  and  his  life,  to  this  gigantic  adventure.  In  the 
spring  of  the  following  year,  the  apostle  and  the  ambassa¬ 
dor,  (for  so  far  the  project  had  in  a  few  months  been  ac- 
30 


350 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


complished,)  sailed  from  Goa  in  the  “Holy  Cross,”  for 
the  then  unexplored  coasts  of  China.  As  they  passed  Ma¬ 
lacca,  tidings  came  to  Xavier  of  the  tardy  though  true  ful¬ 
filment  of  one  of  his  predictions.  Pestilence,  the  minister 
of  Divine  vengeance,  was  laying  waste  that  stiff-necked  and 
luxurious  people;  but  the  wo  he  had  foretold  he  was  the 
foremost  to  alleviate.  Heedless  of  his  own  safety,  he  raised 
the  sick  in  his  arms  and  bore  them  to  the  hospitals.  He 
esteemed  no  time,  or  place,  or  office,  too  sacred  to  give  way 
to  this  work  of  mercy.  Ships,  colleges,  churches,  all  at 
his  bidding  became  so  many  lazarettos.  Night  and  day  he 
lived  among  the  diseased  and  the  dying,  or  quitted  them 
only  to  beg  food  or  medicine,  from  door  to  door,  for  their 
relief.  For  the  moment,  even  China  was  forgotten;  nor 
would  he  advance  a  step  though  it  were  to  convert  to  Chris¬ 
tianity  a  third  part  of  the  human  race,  so  long  as  one  victim 
of  the  plague  demanded  his  sympathy,  or  could  be  directed 
to  an  ever-present  and  still  more  compassionate  Comforter. 
The  career  of  Xavier  (though  he  knew  it  not,)  was  now 
drawing  to  a  close;  and  with  him  the  time  was  ripe  for 
practising  those  deeper  lessons  of  wisdom  which  he  had 
imbibed  from  his  long  and  arduous  discipline. 

With  her  cables  bent  lay  the  “  Holy  Cross”  in  the  port 
of  Malacca,  ready  at  length  to  convey  the  embassage  to 
China,  when  a  difficulty  arose,  which  not  even  the  pro¬ 
phetic  spirit  of  Xavier  had  foreseen.  Don  Alvaro  d’Alayde, 
the  governor,  a  grandee  of  high  rank,  regarded  the  envoy 
and  his  commission  with  an  evil  eye.  To  represent  the 
crown  of  Portugal  to  the  greatest  of  earthly  monarchs  was, 
he  thought,  an  honour  more  meet  for  a  son  of  the  house  of 
Alayde,  than  for  a  man  who  had  risen  from  the  very  dregs 
of  the  people.  The  expected  emoluments  also  exceeded 
the  decencies  of  a  cupidity  less  than  noble.  He  became  of 
opinion  that  it  was  not  for  the  advantage  of  the  service  of 
King  John  III.,  that  the  expedition  should  advance.  Pe- 
reyra  appeared  before  him  in  the  humble  garb  of  a  suitor, 
with  the  offer  of  thirty  thousand  crowns  as  a  bribe.  All 
who  sighed  for  the  conversion,  or  for  the  commerce  of 
China,  lent  the  aid  of  their  intercessions.  Envoys,  saints, 
and  merchants,  united  their  prayers  in  vain.  Brandishing 
his  cane  over  their  heads,  Alvaro  swore  that,  so  long  as  he 
was  governor  of  Malacca  and  captain-general  of  the  seas  of 
Portugal,  the  embassy  should  move  no  farther.  Week  after 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


351 


week  was  thus  consumed,  and  the  season  was  fast  wearing 
away,  when  Xavier  at  length  resolved  on  a  measure  to  be 
justified  even  in  his  eyes  only  by  extreme  necessity.  A 
secret  of  high  significance  had  been  buried  in  his  bosom 
since  his  departure  from  Europe.  The  time  for  the  disclo¬ 
sure  of  it  had  come.  He  produced  a  Papal  Brief,  investing 
him  with  the  dignity  and  the  powers  of  apostolical  nuncio  in 
the  east.  One  more  hinderance  to  the  conversion  of  China, 
and  the  church  would  clothe  her  neck  with  thunders.  Al¬ 
varo  was  still  unmoved;  and  sentence  of  excommunication 
was  solemnly  pronounced  against  him  and  his  abettors. 
Alvaro  answered  by  sequestrating  the  “  Holy  Cross”  her¬ 
self.  Xavier  wrote  letters  of  complaint  to  the  King.  Alvaro 
intercepted  them.  One  appeal  was  still  open  to  the  vicar 
of  Christ.  Prostrate  before  the  altar,  he  invoked  the  aid 
of  Heaven;  and  rose  with  purposes  confirmed,  and  hopes 
reanimated.  In  the  service  of  Alvaro,  though  no  longer 
bearing  the  embassy  to  China,  the  “  Holy  Cross”  was  to 
be  despatched  to  Sancian,  an  island  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Canton  river,  to  which  the  Portuguese  were  permitted  to 
resort  for  trade.  Xavier  resolved  to  pursue  his  voyage  so 
far,  and  thence  proceeded  to  Macao  to  preach  the  gospel 
there.  Imprisonment  was  sure  to  follow.  But  he  should 
have  Chinese  fellow-prisoners.  These  at  least  he  might 
convert;  and  though  his  life  would  pay  the  forfeit,  he  should 
leave  behind  him  in  these  first  Christians  a  band  of  mis¬ 
sionaries  who  would  propagate  through  their  native  land 
the  faith  he  should  only  be  permitted  to  plant. 

It  was  a  compromise  as  welcome  to  Alvaro  as  to  Xavier 
himself.  Again  the  “  Holy  Cross  ”  prepared  for  sea;  and 
the  apostle  of  the  Indies,  followed  by  a  grateful  and  ad¬ 
miring  people,  passed  through  the  gates  of  Malacca  to  the 
beach.  Falling  on  his  face  to  the  earth,  he  poured  forth  a 
passionate  though  silent  prayer.  His  body  heaved  and 
shook  with  the  throes  of  that  agonizing  hour.  What 
might  be  the  fearful  portent  none  might  divine,  and  none 
presumed  to  ask.  A  contagious  terror  passed  from  eye  to 
eye,  but  every  voice  was  hushed.  It  was  as  the  calm  pre¬ 
ceding  the  first  thunder  peal  which  is  to  rend  the  firmament. 
Xavier  arose,  his  countenance  no  longer  beaming  with  its 
accustomed  grace  and  tenderness,  but  glowing  with  a  sacred 
indignation,  like  that  of  Isaiah  when  breathing  forth  his  in¬ 
spired  menaces  against  the  king  of  Babylon.  Standing  on 


352 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


a  rock  amidst  the  waters,  he  loosed  his  shoes  from  off  his 
feet,  smote  them  against  each  other  with  vehement  action, 
and  then  casting  them  from  him,  as  still  tainted  with  the 
dust  of  that  devoted  city,  he  leaped  barefooted  into  the  bark, 
which  bore  him  away  for  ever  from  a  place  from  which  he 
had  so  long  and  vainly  laboured  to  avert  her  impending 
doom. 

She  bore  him,  as  he  had  projected,  to  the  island  of  San- 
cian.  It  was  a  mere  commercial  factory;  and  the  merchants 
who  passed  the  trading  season  there,  vehemently  opposed 
his  design  of  penetrating  farther  into  China.  True  he  had 
ventured  into  the  forest,  against  the  tigers  which  infested 
it,  with  no  other  weapon  than  a  vase  of  holy  water;  and 
the  savage  beasts,  sprinkled  with  that  sacred  element,  had 
for  ever  fled  the  place:  but  the  mandarins  were  fiercer  still 
than  they,  and  would  avenge  the  preaching  of  the  saint  on 
the  inmates  of  the  factory — though  most  guiltless  of  any 
design  but  that  of  adding  to  their  heap  of  crowns  and  moi- 
dores.  Long  years  had  now  passed  away  since  the  voice 
of  Loyola  had  been  heard  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine  urging 
the  solemn  inquiry,  “What  shall  it  profit.”  But  the  words 
still  rung  on  the  ear  of  Xavier,  and  were  still  repeated,  though 
in  vain  to  his  worldly  associates  at  Sancian.  They  sailed 
away  with  their  cargoes,  leaving  behind  them  only  the 
“  Holy  Cross,”  in  charge  of  the  officers  of  Alvaro,  and 
depriving  Xavier  of  all  means  of  crossing  the  channel  to 
Macao.  They  left  him  destitute  of  shelter  and  of  food,  but 
not  of  hope.  He  had  heard  that  the  King  of  Siam  medi¬ 
tated  an  embassy  to  China  for  the  following  year;  and  to 
Siam  he  resolved  to  return  in  Alvaro’s  vessel,  to  join  him¬ 
self,  if  possible,  to  the  Siamese  envoys,  and  so  at  length  to 
force  his  way  into  the  empire. 

But  his  earthly  toils  and  projects  were  now  to  cease  for 
ever.  The  angel  of  death  appeared  with  a  summons,  for 
which,  since  death  first  entered  our  world,  no  man  was 
ever  more  triumphantly  prepared.  It  found  him  on  board 
the  vessel  on  the  point  of  departing  for  Siam.  At  his  own 
request  he  was  removed  to  the  shore,  that  he  might  meet 
his  end  with  the  greater  composure.  Stretched  on  the 
naked  beach,  with  the  cold  blasts  of  a  Chinese  winter  ag¬ 
gravating  his  pains,  he  contended  alone  with  the  agonies  of 
the  fever  which  wasted  his  vital  power.  It  was  a  solitude 
and  an  agony  for  which  the  happiest  of  the  sons  of  men 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


353 


might  well  have  exchanged  the  dearest  society  and  the 
purest  of  the  joys  of  life.  It  was  an  agony  in  which  his 
still  uplifted  crucifix  reminded  him  of  a  far  more  awful  wo 
endured  for  his  deliverance;  and  a  solitude  thronged  by 
blessed  ministers  of  peace  and  consolation,  visible  in  all 
their  bright  and  lovely  aspects  to  the  now  unclouded  eye 
of  faith;  and  audible  to  the  d3'ing  martyr  through  the  yield¬ 
ing  bars  of  his  mortal  prison-house,  in  strains  of  exulting 
joy  till  then  unheard  and  unimagined.  Tears  burst  from 
his  fading  eyes,  tears  of  an  emotion  too  big  for  utterance. 
In  the  cold  collapse  of  death  his  features  were  for  a  few 
brief  moments  irradiated  as  with  the  first  beams  of  ap¬ 
proaching  glory.  He  raised  himself  on  his  crucifix,  and 
exclaiming,  In  te,  Domine ,  speravi — non  confundar  in 
seternum!  he  bowed  his  head  and  died. 

Why  consume  many  words  in  delineating  a  character 
which  can  be  disposed  of  in  three?  Xavier  was  a  Fanatic, 
a  Papist,  and  a  Jesuit.  Comprehensive  and  incontrover¬ 
tible  as  the  climax  is,  it  yet  does  not  exhaust  the  censures 
to  which  his  name  is  obnoxious.  His  understanding,  that 
is,  the  mere  cogitative  faculty,  was  deficient  in  originality, 
in  clearness,  and  in  force.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  re¬ 
ligious  dogma  which  he  would  not  have  embraced,  at  the 
command  of  his  teachers,  with  the  same  infantine  credulity 
with  which  he  received  the  creeds  and  legends  they  actually 
imposed  upon  him.  His  faith  was  not  victorious  over  doubt; 
for  doubt  never  for  one  passing  moment  assailed  it.  Super? 
stition  might  boast  in  him  one  of  the  most  complete  as  well 
as  one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  her  conquests.  She  let! 
him  through  a  land  peopled  with  visionary  forms,  and  re¬ 
sounding  with  ideal  voices — -a  land  of  prodigies  and  por? 
tents,  of  ineffable  discourse  and  unearthly  melodies.  She 
bade  him  look  on  this  fair  world  as  on  some  dungeon  un¬ 
visited  by  the  breath  of  heaven;  and  on  the  glorious  face  of 
nature,  and  the  charms  of  social  life,  as  so  many  snares  and 
pitfalls  for  his  feet.  At  her  voice  he  starved  and  lacerated 
his  body,  and  rivalled  the  meanest  lazar  in  filth  and  wretch¬ 
edness.  Harder  still,  she  sent  him  forth  to  establish  among 
half-civilized  tribes  a  worship  which  to  them  must  have 
become  idolatrous;  and  to  inculcate  a  morality  in  which  the 
holier  and  more  arduous  virtues  were  made  to  yield  prece¬ 
dence  to  ritual  forms  and  outward  ceremonies.  And  yet, 
never  did  the  polytheism  of  ancient  or  of  modern  Rome 

30* 


354 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


assign  a  seat  among  the  demi-gods  to  a  hero  of  nobler 
mould,  or  of  more  exalted  magnanimity,  than  Francis 
Xavier. 

He  lived  among  men  as  if  to  show  how  little  the  gran¬ 
deur  of  the  human  soul  depends  on  mere  intellectual  power. 
His  it  was  to  demonstrate  with  what  vivific  rays  a  heart 
imbued  with  the  love  of  God  and  man  may  warm  and 
kindle  the  nations;  dense  as  may  be  the  exhalations  through 
which  the  giant  pursues  his  course  from  the  one  end  of 
heaven  to  the  other.  Scholars  criticised,  wits  jested,  pru¬ 
dent  men  admonished,  and  kings  opposed  him;  but  on 
moved  Francis  Xavier,  borne  forward  by  an  impulse  which 
crushed  and  scattered  to  the  winds  all  such  puny  obstacles. 
In  ten  short  years,  a  solitary  wanderer,  destitute  of  all  hu¬ 
man  aid — as  if  mercy  had  lent  him  wings,  and  faith  an 
impenetrable  armour — he  traversed  oceans,  islands,  and 
continents,  through  a  track  equal  to  more  than  twice  the 
circumference  of  our  globe;  every  where  preaching,  dis¬ 
puting,  baptizing,  and  founding  Christian  churches.  There 
is  at  least  one  well’ authenticated  miracle  in  Xavier’s  story. 
It  is,  that  any  mortal  man  should  have  sustained  such  toils 
as  he  did;  and  have  sustained  them  too,  not  merely  with 
composure,  but  as  if  in  obedience  to  some  indestructible 
exigency  of  his  nature.  “The  Father  Master  Francis,” 
(the  words  are  those  of  his  associate,  Melchior  Nunez,) 
“  when  labouring  for  the  salvation  of  idolaters,  seemed  to 
act,  not  by  any  acquired  power,  but  as  by  some  natural  in¬ 
stinct;  for  he  could  neither  take  pleasure  nor  even  exist 
except  in  such  employments.  They  were  his  repose;  and 
when  he  was  leading  men  to  the  knowledge  and  the  love 
of  God,  however  much  he  exerted  himself,  he  never  ap¬ 
peared  to  be  making  any  effort.” 

Seven  hundred  thousand  converts  (for  in  these  matters 
Xavier’s  worshippers  are  not  parsimonious,)  are  numbered 
as  the  fruits  of  his  mission;  nor  is  the  extravagance  so  ex¬ 
treme  if  the  word  conversion  be  understood  in  the  sense 
in  which  they  used  it.  Kings,  Rajahs,  and  Princes  were 
always,  when  possible,  the  first  objects  of  his  care.  Some 
such  conquests  he  certainly  made;  and  as  the  flocks  would 
often  follow  their  shepherds,  and  as  the  gate  into  the  Chris¬ 
tian  fold  was  not  made  very  strait,  it  may  have  been  en¬ 
tered  by  many  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands.  But  if 
Xavier  taught  the  mighty  of  the  earth,  it  was  for  the  sake 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES, 


355 


of  the  poor  and  miserable,  and  with  them  he  chiefly  dwelt. 
He  dwelt  with  them  on  terms  ill  enough  corresponding 
with  the  vulgar  notions  of  a  saint.  “You,  my  friends,” 
said  he  to  a  band  of  soldiers  who  had  hidden  their  cards  at 
his  approach,  “  belong  to  no  religious  order,  nor  can  you 
pass  whole  days  in  devotion.  Amuse  yourselves.  To 
you  it  is  not  forbidden,  if  you  neither  cheat,  quarrel,  nor 
swear  when  you  play.”  Then  good-humouredly  sitting 
down  in  the  midst  of  them,  he  challenged  one  of  the  party 
to  a  game  at  chess;  and  was  found  at  the  board  by  Don 
Diego  Noragua,  whose  curiosity  had  brought  him  from  far 
to  see  so  holy  a  man,  and  to  catch  some  fragments  of  that 
solemn  discourse  which  must  ever  be  flowing  from  his  lips. 
The  grandee  would  have  died  in  the  belief  that  the  saint 
was  a  hypocrite,  unless  by  good  fortune  he  had  afterwards 
chanced  to  break  in  on  his  retirement,  and  to  find  him  there 
suspended  between  earth  and  heaven  in  a  rapture  of  devo¬ 
tion,  with  a  halo  of  celestial  glory  encircling  his  head. 

Of  such  miraculous  visitations,  nor  indeed  of  any  other 
of  his  supernatural  performances,  will  any  mention  be 
found  in  the  letters  of  Xavier.  Such  at  least  is  the  result 
of  a  careful  examination  of  a  considerable  series  of  them. 
He  was  too  humble  a  man  to  think  it  probable  that  he 
should  be  the  depositary  of  so  divine  a  gift;  and  too  honest 
to  advance  any  such  claims  to  the  admiration  of  mankind. 
Indeed  he  seems  to  have  been  even  amused  with  the  facili¬ 
ty  with  which  his  friends  assented  to  these  prodigies.  Two 
of  them  repeated  to  him  the  tale  of  his  having  raised  a  dead 
child  to  life,  and  pressed  him  to  reveal  the  truth.  “What!” 
he  replied,  “  I  raise  the  dead!”  “  Can  you  really  believe 
such  a  thing  of  a  wretch  like  me?”  Then  smiling,  he  add¬ 
ed,  “  They  did  indeed  place  before  me  a  child.  They 
said  it  was  dead,  which  perhaps  was  not  the  case.  I  told 
him  to  get  up,  and  he  did  so.  Do  you  call  that  a  miracle?” 
But  in  this  matter  Xavier  was  not  allowed  to  judge  for 
himself.  He  was  a  Thaumaturgus  in  his  own  despite;  and 
this  very  denial  is  quoted  by  his  admirers  as  a  proof  of  his 
profound  humility.  Could  he  by  some  second  sight  have  read 
the  Bull  of  his  own  canonization,  he  would  doubtless,  in  de¬ 
fiance  of  his  senses,  have  believed  (for  belief  was  always  at 
his  command)  that  the  church  knew  much  better  than  he 
did;  and  that  he  had  been  reversing  the  laws  of  nature 
without  perceiving  it;  for  at  the  distance  of  rather  more 


356 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


than  a  half  century  from'his  death,  Pope  Urban  VIII.,  with 
the  unanimous  assent  of  all  the  cardinals,  patriarchs,  arch¬ 
bishops,  and  bishops,  in  sacred  conclave  assembled,  pledged 
his  papal  infallibility  to  the  miracles  already  recorded,  and 
to  many  more.  And  who  can  be  so  sceptical  as  to  doubt 
their  reality,  when  he  is  informed  that  depositions  taken  in 
proof  of  them  were  read  before  that  august  assembly;  and  that 
the  apotheosis  was  opposed  there  by  a  learned  person,  who 
appeared  at  their  bar  in  the  character  and  with  the  title  of 
“  the  Devil’s  advocate.”  A  scoffer  might  indeed  suggest 
that  the  lawyer  betrayed  the  cause  of  his  client  if  he  really 
laboured  to  dispel  illusions,  and  that  the  Father  of  Lies  may 
have  secretly  instructed  his  counsel  to  make  a  sham  fight 
of  it,  in  order  that  one  lie  the  more  might  be  acted  in  the 
form  of  a  new  idol  worship.  Without  exploring  so  dark 
a  question,  it  may  be  seriously  regretted  that  such  old 
wives’  fables  have  been  permitted  to  sully  the  genuine  his¬ 
tory  of  many  a  man  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy, 
and  of  none  more  than  Francis  Xavier.  They  have  long 
obscured  his  real  glory,  and  degraded  him  to  the  low  level 
of  a  vulgar  hero  of  ecclesiastical  romance.  Casting  away 
these  puerile  embellishments,  refused  the  homage  due  to 
genius  and  to  learning,  and  excluded  from  the  number  of 
those  who  have  aided  the  progress  of  speculative  truth,  lie 
emerges  from  those  lower  regions,  clad  with  the  mild  bril¬ 
liancy,  and  resplendent  in  the  matchless  beauty  which  be¬ 
long  to  the  human  nature,  when  ripening  fast  into  a  per¬ 
fect  union  with  the  divine.  He  had  attained  to  that  child¬ 
like  affiance  in  the  Author  of  his  being,  which  gives  an 
unrestrained  play  to  every  blameless  impulse,  even  when 
that  awful  presence  is  the  most  habitually  felt.  His  was 
a  sanctity  which,  at  fitting  seasons,  could  even  disport  it¬ 
self  in  jests  and  trifling.  No  man,  however  abject  his  con¬ 
dition,  disgusting  his  maladies,  or  hateful  his  crimes,  ever 
turned  to  Xavier  without  learning  that  there  was  at  least 
one  human  heart  on  which  he  might  repose  with  all  the 
confidence  of  a  brother’s  love.  To  his  eye  the  meanest  and 
the  lowest  reflected  the  image  of  Him  whom  he  followed 
and  adored;  nor  did  he  suppose  that  he  could  ever  serve 
the  Saviour  of  mankind  so  acceptably  as  by  ministering  to 
their  sorrows,  and  recalling  them  into  the  way  of  peace. 
It  is  easy  to  smile  at  his  visions,  to  detect  his  errors,  to  ri¬ 
dicule  the  extravagant  austerities  of  his  life;  and  even  to 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


357 


show  how  much  his  misguided  zeal  eventually  counteracted 
his  own  designs.  But  with  our  philosophy,  our  luxuries, 
and  our  wider  experience,  it  is  not  easy  for  us  to  estimate 
or  to  comprehend  the  career  of  such  a  man.  Between  his 
thoughts  and  our  thoughts  there  is  but  little  in  common. 
Of  our  wisdom  he  knew  nothing,  and  would  have  despised 
it  if  he  had.  Philanthropy  was  his  passion,  reckless  daring 
his  delight;  and  faith  glowing  in  meridian  splendour  the 
sunshine  in  which  he  walked.  He  judged  or  felt  (and  who 
shall  say  that  he  judged  or  felt  erroneously?)  that  the 
church  demanded  an  illustrious  sacrifice,  and  that  he  was  to 
be  the  victim;  that  a  voice  which  had  been  dumb  for  fifteen 
centuries,  must  at  length  be  raised  again,  and  that  to  him 
that  voice  had  been  imparted;  that  a  new  apostle  must  go 
forth  to  break  up  the  incrustations  of  man’s  long-hardened 
heart,  and  that  to  him  that  apostolate  had  been  committed. 
So  judging,  or  so  feeling,  he  obeyed  the  summons  of  him 
whom  he  esteemed  Christ’s  vicar  on  earth,  and  the  echoes 
from  no  sublunary  region  which  that  summons  seemed  to 
awaken  in  his  bosom.  In  holding  up  to  reverential  admi¬ 
ration  such  self-sacrifices  as  his,  slight,  indeed,  is  the  dan¬ 
ger  of  stimulating  enthusiastic  imitators.  Enthusiasm!  our 
pulpits  distil  their  bland  rhetoric  against  it;  but  where  is 
it  to  be  found?  Do  not  our  share  markets,  thronged  even 
by  the  devout,  overlay  it — and  our  rich  benefices  extin¬ 
guish  it — and  our  pentecosls,  in  the  dazzling  month  of 
May,  dissipate  it — and  our  stipendiary  missions,  and  our 
mitres,  decked  even  in  heathen  lands  with  jewels  and  with 
lordly  titles— -do  they  not,  as  so  many  lightning  conduc¬ 
tors,  effectually  divert  it?  There  is  indeed  the  lackadaisical 
enthusiasm  of  devotional  experiences,  and  the  sentimental 
enthusiasm  of  religious  bazars,  and  the  oratorical  enthu¬ 
siasm  of  charitable  platforms — and  the  tractarian  enthu¬ 
siasm  of  well-beneficed  ascetics;  but  in  what,  except  the 
name,  do  they  resemble  “  the-God-in-us”  enthusiasm  of 
Francis  Xavier? — of  Xavier  the  magnanimous,  the  holy, 
and  the  gay;  the  canonized  saint,  not  of  Rome  only,  but. of 
universal  Christendom;  who,  if  at  this  hour  there  remained 
not  a  solitary  Christian  to  claim  and  to  rejoice  in  his  spi¬ 
ritual  ancestry,  should  yet  live  in  hallowed  and  everlasting 
remembrance;  as  the  man  who  has  bequeathed  to  these 
later  ages,  at  once  the  clearest  proof  and  the  most  illustrious 
example,  that  even  amidst  the  enervating  arts  of  our  modern 


358 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


civilization,  the  apostolic  energy  may  still  burn  with  all  its 
primeval  ardour  in  the  human  soul,  when  animated  and  di¬ 
rected  by  a  power  more  than  human. 

Xavier  died  in  the  year  1552,  in  the  forty-seventh  year 
of  his  age,  and  just  ten  years  and  a  half  from  his  departure 
from  Europe.  During  his  residence  in  India,  he  had 
maintained  a  frequent  correspondence  with  the  General  of 
his  order.  On  either  side  their  letters  breathe  the  tender¬ 
ness  which  is  an  indispensable  element  of  the  heroic  charac¬ 
ter — an  intense  though  grave  affection,  never  degenerating 
into  fondness;  but  chastened,  on  the  side  of  Xavier  by  filial 
reverence,  on  that  of  Ignatius  by  parental  authority.  It 
was  as  a  father,  or  rather  as  a  patriarch,  exercising  a  su¬ 
preme  command  over  his  family,  and  making  laws  for  their 
future  government,  that  Ignatius  passed  the  last  twenty 
years  of  his  life.  No  longer  a  wanderer,  captivating  or 
overawing  the  minds  of  men  by  marvels  addressed  to  their 
imagination,  he  dwelt  in  the  ecclesiastical  capital  of  the 
West,  giving  form  and  substance  to  the  visions  which  had 
fallen  on  him  at  the  Mount  of  Ascension,  and  had  attended 
him  through  every  succeeding  pilgrimage. 

It  proved,  however,  no  easy  task  to  obtain  the  requisite 
Papal  sanction  for  the  establishment  of  his  order.  In  that 
age  the  regular  clergy  had  to  contend  with  an  almost  uni¬ 
versal  unpopularity.  To  their  old  enemies,  the  bishops 
and  secular  priests,  were  added  the  wits,  the  reformers,  and 
the  Vatican  itself.  The  Papal  court  not  unreasonably  at¬ 
tributed  to  their  misconduct,  a  large  share  of  the  disasters 
under  which  the  Church  of  Rome  was  suffering.  On  the 
principle  of  opposing  new  defences  to  new  dangers,  the 
Pope  had  given  his  confidence  and  encouragement  to  the 
Theatins,  and  the  other  isolated  preachers  who  were 
labouring  at  once  to  protect  and  to  purify  the  fold,  by  dif¬ 
fusing  among  them  their  own  deep  and  genuine  spirit  of 
devotion.  It  seemed  bad  policy  at  such  a  moment  to  call 
into  existence  another  religious  order,  which  must  be  re¬ 
garded  with  equal  disfavour  by  these  zealous  recruits,  and 
by  the  ancient  supporters  of  the  Papacy.  Nor  did  the  al¬ 
most  morbid  prescience  of  the  Vatican  fail  to  perceive  how 
dangerous  a  rival,  even  to  the  successors  of  St.  Peter,  might 
become  the  General  of  a  society  projected  on  a  plan  of  such 
stupendous  magnitude. 

Three  years,  therefore,  were  consumed  by  Ignatius  in 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


359 


useless  solicitations.  He  sought  to  propitiate,  not  mere 
mortal  man  only,  but  the  Deity  himself,  by  the  most  la¬ 
vish  promises;  and  is  recorded  to  have  pledged  himself  on 
one  day  to  the  performance  of  three  thousand  masses,  if  so 
his  prayer  might  be  granted.  Earth  and  Heaven  seemed 
equally  deaf  to  his  offers,  when  the  terrors  of  Paul  III. 
were  effectually  awakened  by  the  progress  of  the  Reform¬ 
ers  in  the  very  bosom  of  Italy.  Ferrara  seemed  about  to 
fall  as  Germany,  England,  and  Switzerland,  had  fallen; 
and  the  Consistory  became  enlightened  to  see  the  divine 
hand  in  a  scheme  which  they  had  till  then  regarded  as  the 
workmanship  of  man,  and  as  wrought  with  no  superhu¬ 
man  purposes.  Anxiously  and  with  undisguised  reluctance, 
though,  as  the  event  proved,  with  admirable  foresight,  Paul 
III.,  on  the  27th  September  1540,  affixed  the  Papal  seal 
to  the  Bull  “  Regimini,”  the  Magna  Charta  of  the  order  of 
Jesus.  It  affords  full  internal  evidence  of  the  misgivings 
with  which  it  was  issued.  “  Quamvis  Evangelio  doceamur, 
et  fide  orthodoxa  cognoscamus  ac  firmiter  profiteamur, 
omnes  Christi  fideles,  Romano  pontifici  tanquam  Capiti,ac 
Jesu  Christi  Vicario,  subesse,  ad  majorem  tamen  nostrae 
societatis  humilitatem,  ac  perfectam  unius  cujusque  mortifi- 
cationem,  et  voluntatum  nostrarum  abnegationem,  summo- 
pere  conducere  judicavimus,  singulos  nos,  ultra  illud  com¬ 
mune  vinculum,  speciali  voto  adstringi,  ita  ut  quidquid 
Romani  pontifices,  pro  tempore  existentes,  jusserint 
“  quantum  in  nobis  fueritexequi  teneamur.” 

So  wrote  the  Pope  in  the  persons  of  his  new  Praetorians; 
and  to  elect  a  General  of  the  band,  who  should  guide  them 
to  the  performance  of  this  vow,  was  the  first  care  of  Ig¬ 
natius.  Twice  the  unanimous  choice  of  his  companions 
fell  on  himself.  Twice  the  honour  was  refused.  At 
length,  yielding  to  the  absolute  commands  of  his  confessor, 
he  ascended  the  throne  of  which  he  had  been  so  long  lay¬ 
ing  the  foundations.  Once  seated  there,  his  coyness  was 
at  an  end,  and  he  wielded  the  sceptre  as  best  becomes  an 
absolute  monarch — magnanimously,  and  with  unfaltering 
decision;  beloved,  but  permitting  no  rude  familiarity;  reve¬ 
renced,  but  exciting  no  servile  fear;  declining  no  enterprise 
which  high  daring  might  accomplish,  and  attempting  none 
which  headlong  ambition  might  suggest;  self-multiplied  in 
the  ministers  of  his  will;  yielding  to  them  a  large  and  ge¬ 
nerous  confidence,  yet  trusting  no  man  whom  he  had 


360 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


not  deeply  studied;  and  assigning  to  none  a  province  be¬ 
yond  the  range  of  his  capacity. 

Though  not  in  books,  yet  in  the  far  nobler  school  of 
active,  and  especially  of  military  life,  Loyola  had  learned 
the  great  secret  of  government;  at  least  of  his  government. 

It  was,  that  the  social  affections,  if  concentrated  within 
a  well-defined  circle,  possess  an  intensity  and  endurance, 
unrivalled  by  those  passions  of  which  self  is  the  immediate 
object.  He  had  the  sagacity  to  perceive,  that  emotions 
like  those  with  which  a  Spartan  or  a  Jew  had  yearned  over 
the  land  and  the  institutions  of  their  fathers— -emotions 
stronger  than  appetite,  vanity,  ambition,  avarice,  or  death 
itself — might  be  kindled  in  the  members  of  his  order;  if 
he  could  detect  and  grasp  those  mainsprings  of  human 
action  of  which  the  Greek  and  the  Hebrew  legislators  had 
obtained  the  mastery.  Nor  did  he  seek  them  in  vain. 

It  is  with  an  audacity  approaching  to  the  sublime  that 
Loyola  demands  the  obedience  of  his  subjects — an  obe¬ 
dience  to  be  yielded,  not  in  the  mere  outward  act,  but  by 
the  understanding  and  the  will.  “  Non  intueamini  in  per¬ 
sona  superioris  hominem  obnoxium  erroribus  atque  miseriis, 
sed  Christum  ipsum .”  “  Superioris  vocem  ac  jussa  non 

secus  ac  Christi  vocem  excipiti.  Ut  statuatis  vobiscum 
quidquid  superior  praecipit  ipsius  Dei  praeceptum  esse  ac 
voluntatem.”  He  who  wrote  thus  had  not  lightly  observed 
how  the  spirit  of  man  groans  beneath  the  weight  of  its 
own  freedom,  and  exults  in  bondage  if  only  permitted  to 
think  that  the  chain  has  been  voluntarily  assumed.  Nor 
had  he  less  carefully  examined  the  motives  which  may 
stimulate  the  most  submissive  to  revolt,  when  he  granted 
to  his  followers  the  utmost  liberty  in  outward  things  which 
could  be  reconciled  with  this  inward  servitude; — no  pecu¬ 
liar  habit — no  routine  of  prayers  and  canticles — no  pre¬ 
scribed  system  of  austerities— no  monastic  seclusion.  The 
enslaved  soul  was  not  to  be  rudelv  reminded  of  her  sla- 
very.  Neither  must  the  frivolous  or  the  feeble-minded  have 
a  place  in  his  brotherhood;  for  he  well  knew  how  awful  is 
the  might  of  folly  in  all  sublunary  affairs.  No  one  could 
be  admitted  who  had  worn,  though  but  for  one  day,  the 
habit  of  any  other  religious  order;  for  Ignatius  must  be 
served  by  virgin  souls  and  by  prejudices  of  his  own  en¬ 
grafting.  Stern  initiatory  discipline  must  probe  the  spirits 
of  the  Professed;  for  both  scandal  and  danger  would  attend 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  IIIS  ASSOCIATES. 


361 


the  faintness  of  any  leader  in  the  host.  Gentler  probations 
must  suffice  for  lay  or  spiritual  coadjutors;  for  every  host 
is  incomplete  without  a  body  of  irregular  partisans.  But 
the  General  himself- — the  centre  and  animating  spirit  of 
the  whole  spiritual  army — he  must  rule  for  life;  for  ambi¬ 
tion  and  cabal  will  till  up  any  short  intervals  of  choice,  and 
the  reverence  due  to  royalty  is  readily  impaired  by  the 
aspect  of  dethroned  sovereigns.  lie  must  be  absolute;  for 
human  authority  can  on  no  other  terms  exhibit  itself  as  the 
image  of  the  divine.  He  must  reign  at  a  distance  and  in 
solitude;  for  no  government  is  effective  in  which  imagina¬ 
tion  lias  not  her  work  to  do.  He  must  be  the  ultimate  de¬ 
positary  of  the  secrets  of  the  conscience  of  each  of  his  sub¬ 
jects;  for  irresistible  power  may  inspire  dread  but  not  re¬ 
verence,  unless  guided  by  unlimited  knowledge.  No  sub¬ 
ject  of  his  may  accept  any  ecclesiastical  or  civil  dignity; 
for  he  must  be  supreme  in  rank  as  in  dominion.  And  the 
ultimate  object  of  all  this  scheme  of  government — it  must 
be  vast  enough  to  expand  the  soul  of  the  proselyte  to  a  full 
sense  of  her  own  dignity;  and  practical  enough  to  provide 
incessant  occupation  for  his  time  and  thoughts;  and  must 
have  enough  of  difficulty  to  bring  his  powers  into  strenuous 
activity,  and  of  danger  to  teach  the  lesson  of  mutual  de¬ 
pendence;  and  there  must  be  conflicts  for  the  brave,  and 
intrigues  for  the  subtle,  and  solitary  labours  for  the  stu¬ 
dious,  and  offices  of  mercy  for  the  compassionate;  and  to 
all  must  be  offered  rewards,  both  temporal  and  eternal — in 
this  life,  the  reward  of  a  sympathy  rendered  intense  by 
confinement,  and  stimulating  by  secrecy;  and  in  the  life  to 
come,  felicities  of  which  the  anxious  heart  might  find  the 
assurance  in  the  promises  and  in  the  fellowship  of  the  holy 
and  the  wise — of  men  whose  claims  to  the  divine  favour  it 
would  be  folly  and  impiety  to  doubt. 

If  there  be  in  any  of  our  universities  a  professor  of  moral 
philosophy  lecturing  on  the  science  of  human  nature,  let 
him  study  the  Constitutions  of  Ignatius  Loyola.  They 
were  the  fruit  of  the  solitary  meditations  of  many  years. 
The  lamp  of  the  retired  student  threw  its  rays  on  nothing 
but  his  manuscript,  his  crucifix,  Thomas  a,  Kempis,  Be 
Lnitatione  Christi ,  and  the  New  Testament.  Any  other 
presence  would  have  been  a  profane  intrusion;  for  the 
work  was  but  a  transcript  of  thoughts  imparted  to  his  dis¬ 
embodied  spirit  when,  in  early  manhood,  it  had  been  caught 
31 


362 


STEPHEN'S  MISCELLANIES. 


lip  into  the  seventh  heavens.  As  he  wrote,  a  lambent  flame, 
in  shape  like  a  tongue  of  fire,  hovered  about  his  head;  and 
as  may  be  read  in  his  own  hand,  in  a  still  extant  paper, 
the  hours  of  composition  were  past  in  tears  of  devotion, 
in  holy  ardour,  in  raptures,  and  amidst  celestial  appa¬ 
ritions. 

Some  unconscious  love  of  power,  a  mind  bewildered  by 
many  gross  superstitions,  and  theoretical  errors,  and  per¬ 
haps  some  tinge  of  insanity,  may  be  ascribed  to  Ignatius 
Loyola;  but  no  dispassionate  reader  of  his  writings,  or  of 
his  life,  will  question  his  integrity;  or  deny  him  the  praise 
of  a  devotion  at  once  sincere,  habitual,  and  profound.  It 
is  not  to  the  glory  of  the  reformers  to  depreciate  the  name 
of  their  greatest  antagonist;  or  to  think  meanly  of  him  to 
whom  more  than  any  other  man  it  is  owing  that  the  Refor¬ 
mation  was  stayed,  and  the  Church  of  Rome  rescued  from 
her  impending  doom. 

In  the  language  now  current  amongst  us,  Ignatius  might 
be  described  as  the  leader  of  the  Conservative  against  the 
innovating  spirit  of  his  times.  It  was  an  age,  as  indeed  is 
every  era  of  great  popular  revolutions,  when  the  impulsive 
or  centrifugal  forces  which  tend  to  isolate  man,  preponde¬ 
rating  over  the  attractive  or  centripetal  forces  which  tend  to 
congregate  him,  had  destroyed  the  balance  of  the  social 
system.  From  amidst  the  controversies  which  then  agi¬ 
tated  the  world  had  emerged  two  great  truths,  of  which, 
after  three  hundred  years’  debate,  we  are  yet  to  find  the 
reconcilement.  It  was  true  that  the  Christian  Common¬ 
wealth  should  be  one  consentient  body,  united  under  one 
supreme  head,  and  bound  together  by  a  community  of  law, 
of  doctrine,  and  of  worship.  It  was  also  true  that  each 
member  of  that  body  must,  for  himself,  on  his  own  respon¬ 
sibility,  and  at  his  own  peril,  render  that  worship,  ascer¬ 
tain  that  doctrine,  study  that  law,  and  seek  the  guidance  of 
that  Supreme  Ruler.  Between  these  corporate  duties,  and 
these  individual  obligations,  there  was  a  seeming  contra¬ 
riety.  And  yet  it  must  be  apparent  only,  and  not  real;  for 
all  truths  must  be  consistent  with  each  other.  Here  was 
a  problem  for  the  learned  and  the  wise,  for  schools,  and 
presses,  and  pulpits.  But  it  is  not  by  sages,  nor  in  the 
spirit  of  philosophy,  that  such  problems  receive  their  prac¬ 
tical  solution.  Wisdom  may  be  the  ultimate  arbiter,  but 
is  seldom  the  immediate  agent  in  human  affairs.  It  is  by 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


363 


antagonist  passions,  prejudices,  and  follies,  that  the  equi¬ 
poise  of  this  most  belligerent  planet  of  ours  is  chiefly  pre¬ 
served;  and  so  it  was  in  the  sixteenth  century.  If  Papal 
Rome  had  her  Brennus,  she  must  also  have  her  Camillus. 
From  the  camp  of  the  invaders  arose  the  war-cry  of  abso¬ 
lute  mental  independence;  from  the  beleaguered  host,  the 
watch-word  of  absolute  spiritual  obedience.  The  German 
pointed  the  way  to  that  sacred  solitude  where,  besides  the 
worshipper  himself,  none  may  enter;  the  Spaniard  to  that 
innumerable  company  which,  with  one  accord,  still  chant 
the  liturgies  of  remotest  generations.  Chieftains  in  the 
most  momentous  warfare  of  which  this  earth  had  been  the 
theatre  since  the  subversion  of  Paganism,  each  was  a  rival 
worthy  of  the  other  in  capacity,  courage,  disinterestedness, 
and  the  love  of  truth,  and  yet  how  marvellous  the  con¬ 
trast! 

Luther  took  to  wife  a  nun.  For  thirty  years  together, 
Loyola  never  once  looked  on  the  female  countenance.  To 
overthrow  the  houses  of  the  order  to  which  he  belonged, 
was  the  triumph  of  the  reformer.  To  establish  a  new 
order  on  indestructible  foundations,  the  glory  of  the  saint. 
The  career  of  the  one  was  opened  in  the  cell,  and  con¬ 
cluded  amidst  the  cares  of  secular  government.  The 
course  of  life  of  the  other,  led  him  from  a  youth  of  camps 
and  palaces  to  an  old  age  of  religious  abstraction.  Demons 
haunted  both;  but  to  the  northern  visionary  they  appeared 
as  foul  or  malignant  fiends,  with  whom  he  was  to  agonize 
in  spiritual  strife;  to  the  southern  dreamer,  as  angels  of 
light  marshalling  his  way  to  celestial  blessedness.  As  best 
became  his  Teutonic  honesty  and  singleness  of  heart,  Luther 
aimed  at  no  perfection  but  such  as  may  consist  with  the 
every  day  cares,  and  the  common  duties,  and  the  innocent 
delights  of  our  social  existence;  at  once  the  foremost  of 
heroes,  and  a  very  man;  now  oppressed  with  melancholy, 
and  defying  the  powers  of  darkness,  Satanic  or  human; 
then  “rejoicing  in  gladness  and  thankfulness  of  heart  for 
all  his  abundance;”  loving  and  beloved;  communing  with 
the  wife  of  his  bosom,  prattling  with  his  children;  surren¬ 
dering  his  overburdened  mind  to  the  charms  of  music, 
awake  to  every  gentle  voice,  and  to  each  cheerful  aspect  of 
nature  or  of  art;  responding  alike  to  every  divine  impulse 
and  to  every  human  feeling;  no  chord  unstrung  in  his  spi¬ 
ritual  or  sensitive  frame,  but  all  blending  together  in  liar- 


364 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


monies  as  copious  as  the  bounties  of  Providence,  and  as 
changeful  as  the  vicissimdes  of  life.  How  remote  from 
the  “perfection”  which  Loyola  proposed  to  himself,  and 
which  (unless  we  presume  to  distrust  the  Bulls  by  which 
he  was  beatified  and  canonized)  we  must  suppose  him  to 
have  attained.  Drawn  by  infallible,  not  less  distinctly  than 
by  fallible  limners,  the  portrait  of  the  military  priest  of  the 
Casa  Professa  possesses  the  cold  dignity,  and  the  grace  of 
sculpture;  but  is  wholly  wanting  in  the  mellow  tones,  the 
lights  and  shadows,  the  rich  colouring  and  the  skilful  com¬ 
position  of  the  sister  art.  'There  he  stands  apart  from  us 
mortal  men,  familiar  with  visions  which  he  may  not  com¬ 
municate,  and  with  joys  which  he  cannot  impart.  Severe 
in  the  midst  of  raptures,  composed  in  the  very  agonies  of 
pain;  a  silent,  austere,  and  solitary  man;  with  a  heart 
formed  for  tenderness,  yet  mortifying  even  his  best  affec¬ 
tions;  loving  mankind  as  his  brethren,  and  yet  rejecting 
their  sympathy;  one  while  a  squalid,  care-worn,  self-lace¬ 
rated  pauper,  tormenting  himself  that  so  he  might  rescue 
others  from  sensuality;  and  then,  a  monarch  reigning  in  se¬ 
cluded  majesty,  that  so  he  might  become  the  benefactor  of 
his  race,  or  a  legislator  exacting,  though  with  no  selfish 
purposes,  an  obedience  as  submissive  and  as  prompt  as  is 
due  to  the  King  of  Kings. 

Heart  and  soul  we  are  for  the  Protestant.  He  who  will 
be  wiser  than  his  Maker  is  but  seeming  wise.  He  who 
will  deaden  one-half  of  his  nature  to  invigorate  the  other 
half,  will  become  at  best  a  disiorted  prodigy.  Dark  as  are 
the  pages,  and  mystic  the  character  in  which  the  truth  is 
inscribed,  he  who  can  decipher  the  roll  will  read  there, 
that  self-adoring  pride  is  the  head  spring  of  stoicism,  whe¬ 
ther  heathen  or  Christian.  But  there  is  a  roll  neither  dark 
nor  mystic,  in  which  the  simplest  and  the  most  ignorant 
may  learn  in  what  the  “perfection  ”  of  our  humanity  real¬ 
ly  consists.  Throughout  the  glorious  profusion  of  didactic 
precepis,  of  pregnant  apothegms,  of  lyric  and  choral  songs, 
of  institutes  ecclesiastical  and  civil,  of  historical  legends  and 
biographies,  of  homilies  and  apologues,  of  prophetic  me¬ 
naces,  of  epistolary  admonitions,  and  of  positive  laws, 
which  crowd  the  inspired  Canon,  there  is  still  one  consen¬ 
tient  voice  proclaiming  to  man,  that  the  world  within  and 
the  world  without  him  were  created  for  each  other;  that  his 
interior  life  must  be  sustained  and  nourished  by  intercourse 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


365 


with  external  things;  and  that  he  then  most  nearly  ap¬ 
proaches  to  the  perfection  of  his  nature,  when  most  con¬ 
versant  with  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  life,  and  most  affected 
by  them,  he  is  yet  the  best  prepared  to  renounce  the  one 
or  to  endure  the  other,  in  cheerful  submission  to  the  will 
of  Heaven. 

Unalluring,  and  on  the  whole  unlovely  as  it  is,  the  image 
of  Loyola  must  ever  command  the  homage  of  the  world. 
No  other  uninspired  man,  unaided  by  military  or  civil 
power,  and  making  no  appeal  to  the  passions  of  the  multi- 
tude,  lias  had  the  genius  to  conceive,  the  courage  to  at¬ 
tempt,  and  the  success  to  establish,  a  polity  teeming  with 
results  at  once  so  momentous  and  so  distinctly  foreseen. 
Amidst  his  ascetic  follies,  and  his  half  crazy  visions,  and 
despite  all  the  coarse  daubing  with  which  the  miracle- 
mongers  of  his  Church  have  defaced  it,  his  character  is 
destitute  neither  of  sublimity  nor  of  grace.  They  were 
men  of  no  common  stamp  with  whom  he  lived,  and  they 
regarded  him  with  an  unbounded  reverence.  On  the  an¬ 
niversary  of  his  death  Baronius  and  Bellarmine  met  to 
worship  at  his  tomb ;  and  there,  with  touching  and  unpre¬ 
meditated  eloquence,  joined  to  celebrate  his  virtues.  His 
successor  Laynez  was  so  well  convinced  that  Loyola  was 
beloved  by  the  Deity  above  all  other  men,  as  to  declare  it 
impossible  that  any  request  of  his  should  be  refused.  Xa¬ 
vier  was  wont  to  kneel  when  he  wrote  letters  to  him  ;  to 
implore  the  Divine  aid  through  the  merits  of  his  “holy 
Father  Ignatius,”  and  to  carry  about  his  autograph  as  a 
sacred  relic.  In  popular  estimation,  the  very  house  in 
whicli  he  once  dwelt  had  been  so  hallowed  by  his  presence, 
as  to  shake  to  the  foundation  if  thoughts  unbecoming  its 
purity  found  entrance  into  the  mind  of  any  inmate.  Of  his 
theopathy,  as  exhibited  in  his  letters,  in  his  recorded  dis¬ 
course,  and  in  his  “Spiritual  Exercises,”  it  is  perhaps  dif¬ 
ficult  for  the  colder  imaginations  and  the  Protestant  reserve 
of  the  North  to  form  a  correct  estimate.  Measured  by 
such  a  standard,  it  must  be  pronounced  irreverent  and 
erotic; — -a  libation  on  the  altar  at  once  too  profuse  and  too 
little  filtered  from  the  dross  of  human  passion.  But  to  his 
fellow  men  he  was  not  merely  benevolent,  but  com  passionate, 
tolerant,  and  candid.  However  inflexible  in  exacting  from 
his  chosen  followers  an  all-enduring  constancy,  he  was 
gentle  to  others,  especially  to  the  young  and  the  weak;  and 

n* 


366 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


would  often  make  an  amiable  though  awkward  effort  to 
promote  their  recreation,  lie  was  never  heard  to  mention 
a  fault  or  a  crime,  except  to  suggest  an  apology  for  the  of¬ 
fender.  “  Humbly  to  conceal  humility,  and  to  shun  the 
praise  of  being  humble,”  was  the  maxim  and  the  habit  of 
his  later  life;  and  on  that  principle  he  maintained  the  unos¬ 
tentatious  decencies  of  his  rank  as  General  of  his  order  at 
the  Casa  Professa  ;  a  convent  which  had  been  assigned  at 
Rome  for  their  residence.  There  he  dwelt,  conducting  a 
correspondence  more  extensive  and  important  than  any 
which  issued  from  the  cabinets  of  Paris  or  Madrid.  In 
sixteen  years  lie  had  established  twelve  Jesuit  Provinces  in 
Europe,  India,  Africa,  and  Brazil;  and  more  than  a  hun¬ 
dred  colleges  or  houses  for  the  Professed  and  the  Proba¬ 
tioners,  already  amounting  to  many  thousands.  His  mission¬ 
aries  had  traversed  every  country,  the  most  remote  and  bar¬ 
barous,  which  the  enterprise  of  his  age  had  opened  to  the 
merchants  of  the  West.  The  devout  resorted  to  him  for 
guidance,  the  miserable  for  relief,  the  wise  for  instruction, 
and  the  rulers  of  the  earth  for  succour.  Men  felt  that  there 
had  appeared  among  them  one  of  those  monarchs  who 
reign  in  right  of  their  own  native  supremacy;  and  to  whom 
the  feebler  wills  of  others  must  yield  either  a  ready  or  a 
reluctant  allegiance.  It  was  a  conviction  recorded  by  his 
disciples  on  his  tomb,  in  these  memorable  and  significant 
words:  “  Whoever  thou  mayest  be  who  hast  portrayed  to 
thine  own  imagination  Pompey,  or  Caesar,  or  Alexander, 
open  thine  eyes  to  the  truth,  and  let  this  marble  teach  thee 
how  much  greater  a  conqueror  than  they  was  Ignatius.” 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  comparative  majesty  of 
the  Caesarian  and  the  Ignatian  conquests,  it  was  true  of 
either,  that  on  the  death  of  the  conqueror  the  succession  to 
his  diadem  hung  long  in  anxious  suspense.  Our  tale  de¬ 
scends  from  the  sublime  and  the  heroic  to  the  region  of  or¬ 
dinary  motives  and  ordinary  men.  According  to  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  the  order,  the  choice  of  the  General  was  to 
be  made  in  a  chapter,  of  which  the  fully  Professed,  and 
they  alone,  were  members.  Of  that  body  Jago  Laynez 
was  the  eldest  and  most  eminent,  and  from  his  dying  bed 
(so  at  least  it  was  supposed)  he  summoned  his  brethren  to 
hold  the  election  at  the  Casa  Professa.  The  citation  was 
unanswered.  A  majority  of  the  whole  electoral  college 
were  detained  in  Spain  by  Philip  II.,  who  was  then  en- 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


307 


gaged  in  bis  war  with  the  Papal  court;  and  in  this  extre¬ 
mity  Laynez  was  nominated  to  the  provisional  office  of 
vicar-general.  That  promotion  is  a  specific  in  some  forms 
of  bodily  disease,  is  as  certain  as  any  apothegm  in  Galen. 
Full  of  renovated  life,  the  vicar-general  at  once  assumed 
all  the  powers  of  his  great  predecessor,  and  gave  prompt 
evidence  that  they  had  fallen  into  no  feeble  hands.  But 
neither  was  that  a  feeble  grasp  in  which  the  keys  of  St. 
Peter  were  held.  Hot-headed  and  imperious  as  he  was, 
Paul  IV.  had  quailed  in  the  solemn  presence  of  Loyola; 
but  now,  as  he  believed,  had  found  the  time  for  arresting 
the  advance  of  a  power  which  he  had  learned  to  regard 
with  jealousy.  He  began  (as  an  Englishman  might  ex¬ 
press  it)  by  putting  the  vacant  generalship  into  Commission, 
and  assigned  to  Laynez  nothing  more  than  a  share  in  that 
divided  rule.  A  voyage  to  Spain,  where  in  his  own  coun¬ 
try  and  among  his  own  friends  his  election  would  be  se¬ 
cure,  was  the  next  resource  of  the  vicar-general;  but  a 
Papal  mandate  appeared,  forbidding  any  Jesuit  to  quit  the 
precincts  of  Rome,  Thus  thwarted,  Laynez  resolved  on 
immediately  elevating  into  the  class  of  the  Professed  as 
many  of  his  associates  as  would  form  a  college  numerous 
enough  for  the  choice  of  a  head;  but  the  vigilant  old  Pon¬ 
tiff  detected  and  prohibited  the  design.  Foiled  in  every 
manoeuvre,  nothing  remained  to  the  aspiring  vicar  but  to 
await  the  return  of  peace.  It  came  at  length,  and  with  it 
came  from  Spain  the  electors  so  long  and  anxiously  ex¬ 
pected. 

Lowly  was  the  chamber  in  which  they  were  convened; 
nor  did  there  meet  that  day  within  the  compass  of  the 
Seven  Hills  a  company,  in  outward  semblance,  less  im¬ 
posing;  and  yet,  scarcely  had  the  assembled  Comitia,  to 
whose  shouts  those  hills  had  once  re-echoed,  ever  conferred 
on  Praetor  or  Proconsul  a  power  more  real  or  more  exten¬ 
sive  than  that  which  those  homely  men  were  now  about  to 
bestow.  But  Laynez  seemed  doomed  to  yet  another  dis¬ 
appointment.  The  chapel  doors  were  thrown  open,  and 
the  Cardinal  Pacheco  appearing  among  them,  interdicted, 
in  the  name  of  the  Pope,  all  farther  proceedings,  unless 
they  would  consent  to  choose  their  General  for  three  years 
only;  and  would  engage,  like  other  religious  men,  daily  to 
chant  the  appointed  offices  of  the  Church.  What  are  the 
limits  of  unlimited  obedience?  When,  a  century  and  a 


368 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


half  ago,  our  own  casuists  laboured  for  an  answer  to  that 
knotty  problem,  they  were  but  unconscious  imitators  of 
Jago  Laynez  and  his  companions.  Maugre  vows,  and 
Pope,  and  Cardinal,  they  forthwith  elected  him  General 
for  life;  nor  was  one  litany  the  more  sung  by  the  Jesuits 
for  all  the  Papal  bidding. 

Yet,  the  formal  decencies  of  the  scene,  how  well  were 
they  maintained?  Joyful  thanksgivings  on  the  side  of  the 
electors;  an  aspect  eloquent  with  reluctance,  grief,  and  the 
painful  sense  of  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the  new  Gene¬ 
ral.  Is  it  incredible  that  some  motives  nobler  and  more 
pure  than  those  of  mere  secular  ambition  may  have  animated 
Laynez  on  this  occasion?  Probably  not;  for  there  are  few 
of  us  in  whom  antagonist  principles  do  not  obtain  this  kind 
of  divided  triumph;  and  the  testimonies  to  his  virtues  are 
such  and  so  many  as  almost  to  command  assent  to  their 
substantial  truth.  Of  the  twenty-four  books  of  the  history 
of  Orlandinus,  eight  are  devoted  to  his  administration  of 
the  affairs  of  the  Order.  They  extort  a  willing  acknow¬ 
ledgment,  that  he  possessed  extraordinary  abilities;  and  a 
half-reluctant  admission,  that  he  may  have  combined  with 
them  a  more  than  common  degree  of  genuine  piety. 

Laynez  would  seem  to  have  been  born  to  supply  the  in¬ 
tellectual  deficiencies  of  Ignatius.  He  was  familiar  with 
the  whole  compass  of  the  theological  literature  of  his  age, 
and  with  all  the  moral  sciences  which  a  theologian  was 
then  required  to  cultivate,  With  these  stores  of  knowledge 
he  had  made  himself  necessary  to  the  first  General.  Loyola 
consulted,  employed,  and  trusted,  but  apparently  did  not 
like  him.  It  is  stated  by  Orlandinus,  that  there  was  no 
other  of  his  eminent  followers  whom  the  great  patriarch  of 
the  society  treated  with  such  habitual  rigour,  and  yet  none 
who  rendered  him  such  important  services.  “Do  you  not 
think,”  said  Ignatius  to  him,  “  that  in  framing  their  consti¬ 
tutions,  the  founders  of  the  religious  orders  were  inspired?” 
“I  do,”  was  the  answer,  “so  far  as  the  general  scheme 
and  outline  were  concerned.”  The  inspired  saint,  there¬ 
fore,  took  for  his  province  the  compilation  of  the  text,  the 
uninspired  scholar,  the  preparation  of  the  authoritative  com¬ 
ment.  For  himself,  the  lawgiver  claimed  the  praise  of 
having  raised  an  edifice,  of  which  the  plan  and  the  arrange¬ 
ment  were  divine.  To  his  fellow-labourer  he  assigned  the 
merit  of  having  supported  it  by  the  solid  foundation  of  a 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


369 


learning1,  which,  however  excellent,  was  yet  entirely  hu¬ 
man.  An  example  will  best  explain  this  division  of  labour. 

“In  theologia  iegeiur  Vetus  et  Novum  Testainenlum,  et 
doctrina  seholastica  Divi  Tlmmae  ” — is  the  text.  “  Praele- 
getur  eliam  magister  sententiarum;  sed  si  videatur  temporis 
decursu,  alius  aulor  studenlibus  util ior  futurus,  ut  si  aliqua 
summa,  vel  liber  theologiae  scholasticae,  conficeretur,  qui  nos- 
tr is  teinporibus  accommodatior  videretur  ” — “  praelegi  pote¬ 
nt” — is  the  comment.  Ignatius  was  content  that  the  Divine 
Thom  as  should  be  installed  among  the  Jesuits  as  the  perma¬ 
nent  interpreter  of  the  sacred  oracles.  Laynez,  with  deeper 
foresight,  perceived  that  the  time  was  coming  when  they  must 
discover  a  teacher  “  better  suited  to  times.”  It  was  a  pre¬ 
diction  fulfilled  shortly  after  his  death,  in  the  person  of 
Molina,  who  was  himself  the  pupil  of  the  second  General 
of  the  order. 

To  La  ynez  belongs  the  praise  or  the  reproach  of  having 
revived,  in  modern  times,  the  Molinistor  Arminian  doctrine. 
Our  latest  posterity  will  debate,  as  our  remotest  ancestry 
have  debated,  the  soundness  of  that  creed;  but  that  it  was 
“  temporibus  accommodatior,”  few  will  be  inclined  to  dis¬ 
pute.  The  times  evidently  required  that  the  great  antago¬ 
nists  of  Protestantism  should  inculcate  a  belief  more  com¬ 
prehensive,  and  more  flexible,  than  that  of  Augustine  or  of 
St.  Thomas.  And  if  to  the  adoption  of  those  opinions  may 
be  traced  much  of  the  danger  and  disrepute  to  which  the 
society  was  afterwards  exposed,  to  the  same  cause  may 
be  ascribed  much  of  the  secret  of  their  vitality  and  their 
strength. 

The  doctrines  of  Molina  were  hazarded  by  Laynez,  even 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Council  of  Trent;  where,  though  not 
constitutionally  brave,  he  dared  the  reproach  of  heresy  and 
Pelagianism.  But,  in  the  noblest  theatre  for  the  display  of 
eloquence  which  the  world  had  seen  since  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  commonwealth,  he  exhibited  all  the  hardihood 
which  a  conscious  superiority  in  the  power  of  speech  will 
impart  to  the  least  courageous.  Amidst  cries  of  indigna¬ 
tion,  he  maintained  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  the  ultra¬ 
montane  doctrines,  the  most  unwelcome  to  his  audience; 
and  vehemently  opposed  the  demand  of  more  than  half  of 
Europe  for  the  admission  of  the  laity  to  the  cup.  lie 
felt  that  resentment  must  give  way  to  those  feelings  on 
which  a  great  speaker  seldom  relies  in  vain.  He  spoke 


370 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


from  a  position  best  befitting  an  ostentatious  humility,  and 
therefore  the  most  remote  from  the  thrones  of  the  Papal  le¬ 
gates,  and  the  ambassadors  of  Christendom.  Even  those 
thrones  were  for  a  moment  abandoned.  Cardinals,  Bi¬ 
shops,  Counts,  and  Abbots,  thronged  around  his  chair;  Ge¬ 
nerals  and  Doctors  obeyed  the  same  impulse;  and  for  two 
successive  hours  a  circle  more  illustrious  for  rank  and 
learning  than  ever  before  surrounded  the  tribune  of  an  ora¬ 
tor,  rewarded  his  efforts  by  their  profound  and  silent  ad¬ 
miration.  He  spoke  at  Paris,  and  he  preached  at  Rome, 
with  a  similar  applause;  and  yet,  on  examining  the  only 
two  of  his  speeches  which  have  been  preserved  by  Orlan- 
dinus,  it  is  difficult  to  detect  the  charm  which  once  se¬ 
duced  the  haughtiest  Prelates  into  a  passing  forgetfulness 
of  their  dignity.  The  eloquence  of  Laynez  would  appear 
to  have  been  neither  impassioned  nor  imaginative,  nor  of 
that  intense  earnestness  which  seems  to  despise  the  very 
rules  by  the  observance  of  which  it  triumphs.  Luminous 
argumentation,  clothed  in  transparent  language,  and  deli¬ 
vered  with  facility  and  grace,  was  probably  the  praise  to 
which  he  was  entitled — no  vulgar  praise  indeed;  for,  amidst 
the  triumphs  of  oratory,  few  are  greater  or  more  welcome 
than  that  of  infusing  order,  without  fatigue,  into  the  chaotic 
thoughts  of  an  inquisitive  audience. 

Ambition  clothed  in  rags,  subtlety  under  the  guise  of 
candour,  are  the  offences  which  the  enemies  of  his  order 
have  ascribed  to  Laynez.  But  a  man  who,  in  the  six¬ 
teenth  century,  refused  a  Cardinal’s  hat,  (his  refusal  of 
the  Papacy  is  a  more  apocryphal  story,)  can  hardly  have 
been  the  victim  of  a  low  desire  for  worldly  honours;  and  hy¬ 
pocrisy  is  a  charge  which  every  one  must  bear  who  has  to 
do  with  opponents  incredulous  of  virtue  superior  to  their 
own.  For  eighteen  years  the  head  of  a  body  distrusted 
and  unpopular  from  its  infancy,  he  had  neither  hereditary 
rank  to  avert  the  envy  which  waits  on  greatness,  nor  the 
lofty  daring  to  which  the  world  is  ever  prompt  to  yield 
idolatrous  homage.  In  his  hands  the  weapons  of  Ignatius 
or  of  Xavier  would  have  been  impotent;  but  he  wielded  his 
own  with  address  and  with  admirable  effect.  To  him  his 
society  were  first  indebted  for  their  characteristic  doctrine, 
for  the  possession  and  the  fame  of  learning,  for  many  en¬ 
largements  of  their  privileges,  for  a  more  intimate  alliance 
with  the  Papacy,  and  the  more  pronounced  hostility  of  the 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


371 


Reformers.  He  first  established  for  them  that  authority 
in  the  Cabinets  of  Europe,  on  which,  at  no  distant  time, 
the  edifice  of  their  temporal  power  was  to  rest;  and  it  was 
his  melancholy  distinction  to  number  among  his  disciples 
the  infamous  Catherine  of  Medici,  and  her  less  odious,  be¬ 
cause  feebler,  son.  He  was  associated  with  them  at  the 
very  time  when  they  were  revolving  the  greatest  crime 
with  which  the  annals  of  Christendom  have  been  polluted. 
With  the  guilt  of  that  massacre  his  memory  is,  however, 
unstained;  except  so  far  as  the  doctrines  he  inculcated,  in 
his  debates  at  Paris  with  Beza  and  Peter  Martyr,  may  have 
taught  the  sovereigns  to  think  lightly  of  any  bloodshed 
which  should  rid  the  world  of  a  party  abhorred  of  God, 
and  hateful  to  the  enlightened  eye  of  man. 

Gifted  with  extraordinary  talents,  profound  learning, 
flexible  address,  and  captivating  eloquence,  Laynez  fell 
short  of  that  standard  at  which,  alone,  men  may  inscribe 
their  names  in  the  roll  sacred  to  those  who  have  reigned 
over  their  fellow  mortals  by  right  divine,  because  a  right 
inherent  and  indefeasible.  Without  the  genius  to  devise, 
or  the  glowing  passion  to  achieve,  great  things,  none  may 
be  associated  with  those  kings  of  the  earth  on  whose 
brows  nature  herself  has  set  the  diadem.  Far  surpassing 
in  mere  intellectual  resources  both  Xavier  and  Ignatius, 
the  fiery  element  native  to  their  souls  was  uninhabitable  to 
his.  Laynez  was  the  first,  if  not  the  most  eminent,  ex¬ 
ample  of  the  results  of  Loyola’s  discipline;  and  illustrates 
the  effect  of  concentrating  all  the  interests  of  life,  and  all 
the  affections  of  the  heart,  within  the  narrow  circle  of  one 
contracted  fellowship.  It  yielded  in  him,  as  it  has  often 
produced  in  others,  a  vigorous  but  a  stunted  development 
of  character;  a  kind  of  social  selfishness  and  sectional  vir¬ 
tue;  a  subordination  of  philanthropy  to  the  love  of  caste; 
a  spirit  irreclaimably  servile,  because  exulting  in  its  own 
servitude;  a  temper  consistent,  indeed,  with  great  actions 
and  often  contributing  to  them,  but  destructive  (at  least  in 
ordinary  minds)  of  that  free  and  cordial  sympathy  with  man 
as  man; — of  those  careless  graces,  and  of  that  majestic  re¬ 
pose,  which  touch  and  captivate  the  heart,  and  to  which 
must,  in  part  at  least,  be  ascribed  the  sacred  fascination  ex¬ 
ercised  over  us  all  by  the  simple  records  of  the  life  of  Him 
whose  name  the  society  of  Jesus  had  assumed. 

Oil  the  2d  of  July  1565  the  Casa  Professa,  usually  the 


372 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


scene  of  a  profound  stillness,  was  agitated  by  an  unwonted 
excitement.  Men  of  austere  demeanour  might  be  seen 
there  clasping  each  others’  hands,  and  voices  habitually 
mute  were  interchanging  hearty  congratulations.  One 
alone  appeared  to  take  no  share  in  the  common  joy.  As  il 
overpowered  by  some  strange  and  unwelcome  tidings,  he 
seemed  by  imploring  gestures  to  deprecate  a  decision 
against  which  his  paralyzed  lips  in  vain  attempted  to  pro¬ 
test.  His  age  might  be  nearly  fifty,  his  dress  mean  and  sor¬ 
did,  and  toil  or  suffering  had  ploughed  their  furrows  in 
his  pallid  cheek;  but  he  balanced  his  tall  and  still  grace¬ 
ful  figure  with  a  soldier’s  freedom,  and  gazed  on  his  asso- 
ciales  with  a  countenance  cast  in  that  mould  which  ladies 
love  and  artists  emulate.  They  called  him  Father  Fran¬ 
cis;  and  on  the  death  of  Lavnez  their  almost  unanimous 
suffrage  had  just  hailed  him  as  the  third  General  of  the 
Order  of  Jesus.  The  wish  for  rank  and  power  was 
never  more  sincerely  disclaimed,  for  never  had  they  been 
forced  on  any  one  who  had  a  larger  experience  of  their 
vanity. 

In  the  female  line  Father  Francis  was  the  grandson  of 
Ferdinand  of  Arragon,  and  therefore  the  near  kinsman 
of  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  Among  1 1 is  paternal  ancestry 
he  could  boast  or  lament  the  names  of  Alexander  VI.  and 
of  Caesar  Borgia.  Of  that  house,  eminent  alike  for  their 
wealth,  their  honours,  and  their  crimes,  lie  was  the  lineal 
representative;  and  had,  in  early  manhood,  inherited  from 
his  father  the  patrimony  and  the  title  of  the  Dukes  of 
Oandia. 

Don  Francis  Borgia,  as  if  to  rescue  the  name  he  bore  from 
the  infamy  of  his  progenitors,  exhaled,  even  in  his  childish 
days,  the  odour  of  sanctity.  With  each  returning  month, 
lie  cast  a  lot  to  determine  which  he  should  personate  of 
the  saints  with  whose  names  it  was  studded  on  the  calen¬ 
dar.  In  his  tenth  year,  with  a  virtue  unsung  and  uncon¬ 
ceived  by  the  Musas  Etonienses ,  he  played  at  saints  so  per¬ 
fectly  as  to  inflict  a  vigorous  chastisement  on  his  own  na¬ 
ked  person.  It  is  hard  to  resist  the  wish  that  the  scourge 
had  been  more  resolutely  wielded  by  the  arm  of  his  tutor. 
So  seems  to  have  thought  his  maternal  uncle  Don  John  of 
Arragon,  Archbishop  of  Saragossa.  Taking  the  charge  of 
his  nephew,  that  high-born  prelate  compelled  him  to  study 
alternately  the  lessons  of  the  riding-master  and  those  of 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


373 


the  master  of  the  sentences;  and  in  his  nineteenth  year  sent 
him  to  complete  his  education  at  the  court  of  his  imperial 
cousin. 

Ardent  as  were  still  the  aspirations  of  the  young1  courtier 
for  the  monastic  life,  no  one  in  that  gallant  circle  bore  him¬ 
self  more  bravely  in  the  menage ,  or  sheathed  his  sword 
with  a  steadier  hand  in  the  throat  of  the  half-maddened  bull, 
or  more  skilfully  disputed  with  his  sovereign  the  honours 
of  the  tournament.  As  the  youthful  knight,  bowing  to  the 
saddle-tree,  lowered  his  spear  before  the  “  Queen  of  Beauty,” 
many  a  full  dark  eye  beamed  with  a  deeper  lustre;  but  his 
triumph  was  incomplete  and  worthless  unless  it  won  the  ap¬ 
proving  smile  of  Eleonora  de  Castro.  That  smile  was  not 
often  refused.  But  the  romance  of  Don  Francis  begins 
where  other  romances  terminate.  Foremost  in  the  train  of 
Charles  and  Isabella,  the  husband  of  the  fair  Eleonora  still 
touched  his  lute  with  unrivalled  skill  in  the  halls  of  the 
Escurial,  or  followed  the  quarry  across  the  plains  of  Cas¬ 
tile  in  advance  of  the  most  ardent  falconer.  Yet  that 
music  was  universally  selected  from  the  offices  of  the  church; 
and  in  the  very  agony  of  the  chase,  just  as  the  wheeling 
hawk  paused  for  his  last  deadly  plunge,  (genius  of  Nimrod, 
listen!)  he  would  avert  his  eyes  and  ride  slowly  home,  the 
inventor  of  a  matchless  effort  of  penitential  self-denial. 

With  Charles  himself  for  his  fellow  pupil,  Don  Francis 
studied  the  arts  of  war  and  fortification  under  the  once  cele¬ 
brated  Sainte  Croix,  and  practised  in  Africa  the  lessons  he 
had  been  taught; — earning  the  double  praise,  that  in  the 
camp  he  was  the  most  magnificent,  in  the  field  the  most 
adventurous,  of  all  the  leaders  in  that  vaunted  expedition. 
At  the  head  of  a  troop  enlisted  and  maintained  by  hirnself, 
he  attended  the  emperor  to  the  Milanese  and  Provence;  and, 
in  honourable  acknowledgment  of  his  services,  was  selected 
by  Charles  to  lay  a  report  of  the  campaign  before  the  em¬ 
press  in  person,  at  Segovia.  Towards  her  he  felt  an  al¬ 
most  filial  regard.  She  had  long  been  the  zealous  patron 
and  the  cordial  friend  of  himself  and  of  Eleonora;  and  at  the 
public  festivals  which  celebrated  the  victories  of  Charles, 
and  the  meeting  of  the  states  of  Castile  at  Toledo,  they 
shone  among  the  most  brilliant  of  the  satellites  by  which 
her  throne  was  encircled. 

At  the  moment  of  triumph  the  inexorable  arm  was  un¬ 
bared  which  so  often,  as  in  mockery  of  human  pomp,  con- 
32 


374 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


founds  together  the  world’s  bravest  pageants  and  the  hu¬ 
miliations  of  the  grave.  Dust  to  dust  and  ashes  to  ashes, 
but,  when  the  imperial  fall,  not  without  one  last  poor  asser¬ 
tion  of  their  departed  dignity.  Isabella  might  not  be  laid 
in  the  sepulchre  of  the  kings  of  Spain,  until  amidst  the 
funeral  rites  the  soldered  coffin  had  been  opened,  the  cere¬ 
ments  removed,  and  some  grandee  of  the  highest  rank  had 
been  enabled  to  depose,  that  he  had  seen  within  them  the 
very  body  of  the  deceased  sovereign.  Such,  in  pursuance 
of  an  ancient  custom,  was  the  duty  confided  to  the  zeal  of 
Don  Francis  Borgia,  nor  was  any  one  better  fitted  for  such 
a  trust.  The  eye,  now  for  ever  closed,  had  never  turned 
to  him  but  with  maternal  kindness,  and  every  lineament  of 
that  serene  and  once  eloquent  countenance  was  indelibly 
engraven  on  his  memory.  Amidst  the  half-uttered  prayers 
which  commended  her  soul  to  the  Divine  mercy,  and  the 
low  dirge  of  the  organ,  he  advanced  with  streaming  eyes, 
and  reverently  raised  the  covering  which  concealed  the  se¬ 
crets  of  the  grave,  when — but  why  or  how  portray  the  ap¬ 
palling  and  loathsome  spectacle?  That  gentle  brow,  that 
eloquent  countenance,  that  form  so  lately  raised  on  earth’s 
proudest  throne,  and  extolled  with  an  almost  adoring  homage! 
Don  Francis  turned  from  the  sight  to  shudder  and  to  pray. 

It  was  the  great  epoch  in  the  life  of  Borgia.  In  the  eyes 
of  the  world,  indeed,  he  may  have  been  unchanged;  but  in 
his  eyes  the  whole  aspect  of  that  world  was  altered.  Lord 
of  a  princely  fortune,  the  heir  of  an  illustrious  house,  the 
favourite  kinsman  of  the  Emperor  of  the  West,  renowned 
in  the  very  flower  of  his  youth  as  a  warrior,  a  courtier,  and 
a  musician,  his  home  hallowed  by  conjugal  love,  and  glad¬ 
dened  by  the  sports  of  his  children;  for  whom  had  life  a 
deeper  interest,  or  who  could  erect  on  a  surer  basis  a  loftier 
fabric  of  more  brilliant  hopes?  Those  interests  and  hopes 
he  deliberately  resigned,  and,  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine, 
bound  himself  by  a  solemn  vow,  that  in  the  event  of  his 
surviving  Eleonora,  he  would  end  his  days  as  a  member  of 
some  religious  order.  He  had  gazed  on  the  hideous  tri¬ 
umph  of  death  and  sin  over  prospects  still  more  splendid 
than  his  own.  For  him  the  soothing  illusions  of  existence 
were  no  more — earth  and  its  inhabitants,  withering  under 
the  curse  of  their  Maker,  might  put  on  their  empty  gauds, 
and  for  some  transient  hour  dream  and  talk  of  happiness. 
But  the  curse  was  there,  and  there  would  it  lie,  crushing 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


375 


the  frivolous  spirit  the  most  when  felt  the  least,  and  con¬ 
signing  alike  to  that  foul  debasement  the  lovely  and  the 
brave;  the  sylph  now  floating  through  the  giddy  dance,  and 
the  warrior  now  proudly  treading  the  held  of  victory. 

From  such  meditations  Charles  endeavoured  to  recall  his 
friend  to  the  common  duties  of  life.  He  required  him  to 
assume  the  viceroyalty  of  Catalonia,  and  adorned  him  with 
the  cross  of  the  order  of  Alcantara,  then  of  all  chivalric 
honours  the  noblest  anil  the  most  highly  prized.  His  ad¬ 
ministration  was  firm,  munificent,  and  just;  it  forms  the 
highest  era  of  1 1 is  life,  and  is  especially  signalized  by  the 
same  sedulous  care  for  the  education  of  the  young,  which 
afterwards  formed  his  highest  praise  as  General  of  the 
Order  of  Jesus. 

Ingenious  above  all  men  in  mortifying  his  natural  af¬ 
fections,  Don  Francis  could  not  neglect  the  occasion  which 
his  new  dignities  afforded  him,  of  incurring  much  whole- 
some  contumely.  Sumptuous  banquets  must  be  given  in 
honour  of  his  sovereign,  when  he  could  at  once  fast  and  be 

O  7 

despised  for  fasting.  To  exhibit  himself  in  penitential 
abasement  before  the  people  under  his  authority,  would 
give  to  penitence  the  appropriate  accompaniment  of  genera! 
contempt.  On  the  festival  of  “  the  Invention  of  the  Holy 
Cross,”  mysteries  not  unlike  those  of  the  Bona  Dea  were 
to  be  celebrated  by  the  ladies  of  Barcelona,  when,  to  pre¬ 
vent  the  profane  intrusion  of  any  of  the  coarser  sex,  the 
viceroy  himself  undertook  the  office  of  sentinel.  With  a 
naked  dagger  in  his  hand,  a  young  nobleman  demanded 
entrance,  addressing  to  the  viceroy  insults  such  as  every 
gentleman  is  bound,  under  the  heaviest  penalty  of  the  laws 
of  chivalry,  to  expiate  by  blood.  A  braver  man  did  not 
tread  the  soil  of  Spain  than  Don  Francis,  nor  any  one  to 
whom  the  reproach  of  poltroonery  was  more  hateful.  And 
yet  his  sword  did  not  leap  from  his  scabbard.  With  a 
calm  rebuke,  and  courteous  demeanour,  he  allowed  the 
bravo  to  enter  the  sacred  precincts — preferring  the  impu¬ 
tation  of  cowardice,  though  slinging  like  an  adder,  to  the 
sin  of  avenging  himself,  and,  indeed,  to  the  duty  of  main¬ 
taining  his  lawful  authority.  History  has  omitted  to  tell 
what  were  the  weapons,  or  what  the  incantation,  by  which 
the  ladies  promptly  ejected  the  insolent  intruder,  nor  has 
she  recorded  how  they  afterwards  received  their  guardian 
knight  of  Alcantara,  Her  only  care  has  been  to  excite  our 


376 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


admiration  for  this  most  illustrious  victory  in  the  bosom  of 
Don  Francis,  of  the  meekness  of  the  saint  over  the  human 
passions  of  the  soldier. 

At  the  end  of  four  years  Don  Francis  was  relieved  by 
the  death  of  his  father  from  his  viceregal  office,  and  as¬ 
sumed  his  hereditary  title  of  Duke  of  Gandia.  His  vassals 
exulted  in  the  munificence  of  their  new  chief.  The  ancient 
retainers  of  his  family  lived  on  his  bounty — cottages,  con¬ 
vents,  and  hospitals,  rose  on  his  estates — fortresses  were 
built  to  check  the  ravages  of  the  Moorish  corsairs,  and  the 
mansion  of  his  ancestors  reappeared  in  all  its  ancient  splen¬ 
dour.  In  every  work  of  piety  and  mercy  the  wise  and 
gentle  Eleonora  was  the  rival  of  her  lord.  But  it  w7as  the 
only  strife  which  ever  agitated  the  Castle  of  Gandia.  Aus¬ 
terities  were  practised  there,  but  gloom  and  lassitude  were 
unknown;  nor  did  the  bright  suns  of  Spain  gild  any  feudal 
ramparts,  within  which  love,  and  peace  the  child  of  love, 
shed  their  milder  light  with  a  more  abiding  radiance. 

But  on  that  countenance,  hitherto  so  calm  and  so  sub¬ 
missive,  might  at  length  be  traced  the  movements  of  an 
inward  tempest,  with  which,  even  when  prostrate  before 
the  altar,  the  Duke  of  Gandia  strove  in  vain.  Conversant 
with  every  form  of  self-inflicted  suffering,  how  should  he 
find  strength  to  endure  the  impending  death  of  Eleonora! 
His  was  a  prayer  transcending  the  resources  of  language  and 
of  thought;  it  was  the  mute  agony  of  a  breaking  heart.  But 
after  the  whirlwind  and  the  fire,  was  heard  the  still  small 
voice.  It  said,  or  seemed  to  say,  “  If  it  be  thy  will,  she  shall 
recover;  but  not  for  her  real  welfare  nor  for  thine.”  Adoring 
gratitude  swept  away  every  feebler  emotion,  and  the  sup¬ 
pliant’s  grief  at  length  found  utterance.  “  Thy  will  be 
done.  Thou  knowest  what  is  best  for  us.  Whom  have 
we  in  heaven  but  thee,  and  whom  upon  earth  should  we 
desire  in  comparison  of  thee?”  At  the  age  of  thirty-six 
the  Duke  of  Gandia  committed  to  the  tomb  the  frame  once 
animated  by  a  spirit  from  which  not  death  itself  could  se¬ 
parate  him.  In  the  sacred  retirement  to  which  in  that 
event  he  had  devoted  his  remaining  days,  Eleonora  would 
still  unite  her  prayers  to  his;  and  as  each  of  those  days 
should  decline  into  the  welcome  shadows  of  evening,  one 
stage  the  more  towards  his  reunion  with  her  would  have 
been  traversed. 

The  Castle  of  Gandia  was  still  hung  with  the  funeral 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  IIIS  ASSOCIATES.  377 

draperies  when  a  welcome  though  unexpected  guest  ar¬ 
rived  there.  It  was  Peter  Faber,  the  officiating  priest  at 
the  Crypt  of  Montmartre,  charged  by  Ignatius  with  a  mis¬ 
sion  to  promote  the  cause  of  Christian  education  in  Spain. 
Aided  by  his  counsels,  and  by  the  letters  of  the  patriarch, 
the  duke  erected  on  his  esiates  a  church,  a  college,  and  a 
library,  and  placed  them  under  the  care  of  teachers  se¬ 
lected  by  Ignatius.  The  sorrows  of  the  duke  were  relieved 
as  his  wealth  flowed  still  more  copiously  in  this  new  chan¬ 
nel  of  beneficence;  and  the  universities  of  Alcala  and  Seville 
were  enlarged  by  his  bounty  with  similar  foundations.  But, 
as  Faber  remarked,  a  still  nobler  edifice  was  yet  to  be 
erected  on  the  soul  of  the  founder  himself.  The  first  stone 
of  it  was  laid  in  the  duke’s  performance  of  the  Spiritual 
Exercises.  To  the  completion  of  this  invisible  but  im¬ 
perishable  building,  the  remainder  of  his  life  was  inflexibly 
devoted. 

With  Ignatius  the  duke  had  long  maintained  a  corres¬ 
pondence,  in  which  the  stately  courtesies  of  Spanish  noble¬ 
men  not  ungracefully  temper  the  severe  tones  of  patriarchal 
authority  and  filial  reverence.  Admission  into  the  order 
of  Jesus  was  an  honour  for  which,  in  this  case,  the  aspi¬ 
rant  was  humbly  content,  and  was  wisely  permitted  long 
to  wait  and  sue.  To  study  the  biograph} ,  that  he  might 
imitate  the  life  of  Him  by  whose  holy  name  the  society 
was  called;  to  preach  in  his  own  household,  or  at  the  wicket 
of  the  nunnery  of  the  ladies  of  St.  Clair;  and  day  by  day, 
to  place  in  humiliating  contrast  some  proof  of  the  divine 
goodness,  and  some  proof  of  his  own  demerit,  were  the 
first  probationary  steps  which  the  duke  was  required  to 
tread  in  the  toilsome  path  on  which  he  had  thus  entered. 
It  was  a  path  from  which  Philip,  then  governing  Spain 
with  the  title  of  regent,  would  have  willingly  seduced  him. 
He  consulted  him  on  the  most  critical  affairs;  summoned 
him  to  take  a  high  station  in  the  states  of  Castile;  and 
pressed  on  his  acceptance  the  office  of  grand  master  of  the 
royal  household.  It  was  declined  in  favour  of  the  Duke  of 
Alva.  Had  Gandia  preferred  the  duties  of  his  secular  rank 
to  those  of  his  religious  aspirations,  Spain  might  have  had 
a  saint  the  less  and  seven  provinces  the  more.  With  the 
elevation  of  Alva,  the  butcheries  in  the  Netherlands,  the 
disgrace  of  Spain,  and  the  independence  of  Holland  might 
have  been  averted. 


32* 


378 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


Warned  by  bis  escape,  the  duke  implored  with  renewed 
earnestness  his  immediate  admission  into  the  order;  nor 
was  Ignatius  willing  that  his  proselyte  should  again  incur 
such  dangers.  At  the  chapel  of  his  own  college  he  accord¬ 
ingly  pronounced  the  irrevocable  vows;  a  Papal  bull  having 
dispensed  during  a  term  of  four  years  with  any  public 
avowal  of  the  change.  They  were  passed  in  the  final  ad¬ 
justment  of  his  secular  affairs.  He  had  lived  in  the  splen¬ 
dour  appropriate  to  his  rank  and  fortune,  and  in  the  exercise 
of  the  bounty  becoming  his  eminence  in  the  Christian  com¬ 
monwealth.  But  now  all  was  to  be  abandoned,  even  the 
means  of  almsgiving,  for  he  was  himself  henceforth  to  live 
on  the  alms  of  others.  He  gave  his  children  in  marriage 
to  the  noblest  houses  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  transferred  to 
his  eldest  son  the  enjoyment  of  the  patrimonial  estates  of 
Gandia,  and  then,  at  the  age  of  forty,  meekly  betook  him¬ 
self  to  the  study  of  scholastic  divinity,  of  the  traditions  of 
the  church,  and  of  the  canons  of  the  general  councils.  He 
even  submitted  to  all  the  rules,  and  performed  all  the  pub¬ 
lic  exercises  enforced  on  the  youngest  student.  Such  was 
his  piety  that  the  thorny  fagots  of  the  schoolmen  fed  in¬ 
stead  of  smothering  the  flame;  and  on  the  margin  of  his 
Thomas  Aquinas  might  be  seen  some  devout  aspiration, 
extracted  by  his  sacred  alchemy  from  each  subtle  distinc¬ 
tion  in  the  text.  Never  before  or  since  was  the  degree  of 
Doctor  in  Divinity,  to  which  he  now  proceeded,  so  hardly 
earned  or  so  well  deserved. 

Two  of  the  brothers  of  the  duke  had  been  members  of 
the  sacred  college,  and  his  humility  had  refused  the  purple 
offered  at  the  instance  of  the  emperor  to  two  of  his  sons. 
But  how  should  the  new  doctor  avert  from  his  own  head 
the  ecclesiastical  cap  of  maintenance  with  which  Charles 
was  now  desirous  to  replace  the  ducal  coronet?  He  fled 
the  presence  of  his  imperial  patron;  made  and  executed  his 
own  testamentary  dispositions,  delivered  his  last  parental 
charge  to  his  eldest  son,  and  bade  a  final  adieu  to  his  weep¬ 
ing  family.  The  gates  of  the  castle  of  Gandia  closed  on 
their  self-banished  lord.  He  went  forth,  like  Francis  Xa¬ 
vier,  chanting  the  song  of  David — “  When  Israel  went  out 
of  Egypt,  and  the  house  of  Jacob  from  a  strange  people,” 
— adding  from  another  strain  of  the  royal  minstrel,  “Our 
bonds  are  broken  and  we  are  delivered.”  He  lived  for 
more  than  twenty  years  from  this  time,  and  in  his  future 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES, 


379 


missions  into  Spain  often  passed  the  gates  of  the  castle,  but 
never  more  re-entered  them.  He  became  a  stranger  even 
to  his  children,  never  again  passing  so  much  as  a  single 
day  in  their  society,  or  even  permitting  himself  to  become 
acquainted  with  their  offspring. 

As  the  bird  set  free  to  her  nest,  so  hasted  the  emanci¬ 
pated  duke  to  take  his  seat  at  the  footstool  of  Ignatius. 
Yet  in  his  route  through  Ferrara  and  Florence,  his  sacred 
impatience  was  arrested,  and  his  humility  confirmed,  by 
the  unwelcome  honours  yielded  to  him  by  his  kinsmen, 
the  reigning  sovereigns  of  those  duchies.  He  would  have 
entered  Rome  by  night;  but  in  the  city  of  triumphs  and 
ovations,  the  victorious  Loyola  must  exhibit  so  illustrious 
a  captive.  Attended  by  the  ambassador  of  Spain,  by  a 
prince  of  the  house  of  Colonna,  and  by  a  long  train  of  car¬ 
dinals,  priests,  and  nobles,  the  Duke  of  Gandia  advanced 
in  solemn  procession  to  the  Casa  Professa.  There,  in  the 
presence  of  his  General,  his  wearied  spirit  found  at  length 
the  repose  which  the  most  profuse  liberality  of  fortune  had 
been  unable  to  bestow.  With  tears  of  joy  he  kissed  the  feet 
of  the  patriarch  and  of  his  Professed  brethren,  esteeming 
the  meanest  office  in  their  household  an  honour  too  ex¬ 
alted  for  so  unworthy  an  associate;  and  then,  in  a  general 
confession,  poured  into  the  ear  of  Ignatius  every  secret  of 
his  conscience  from  the  dawn  of  life  to  that  long  desired 
hour. 

Such  zeal  was  a  treasure  too  precious  to  be  left  without 
some  great  and  definite  object;  and  as  the  duke  was  still 
the  steward  of  some  of  this  world’s  treasures,  which  he  had 
devoted  to  sacred  uses,  they  were  employed  in  building  at 
Rome  the  church  and  college  afterwards  so  famous  as  the 
College  de  Propaganda  Fide.  One  only  secular  care  still 
awaited  him.  His  rank  as  a  grandee  of  Spain,  and  the 
cross  of  Alcantara,  could  not  be  laid  aside  without  the  con¬ 
sent  of  the  emperor.  It  was  solicited  with  all  the  grace  of 
an  accomplished  courtier,  and  all  the  fervour  of  a  saint. 
But  while  he  awaited  at  Rome  the  answer  of  Charles,  a 
new  alarm  disturbed  the  serenity  of  the  Casa  Professa. 
The  dreaded  purple  was  again  pressed  on  him  with  all  the 
weight  of  Papal  admonition.  To  avoid  it,  Gandia  fled  the 
presence  of  the  Pope,  and  Ignatius  returned  to  Spain,  per¬ 
formed  a  pilgrimage  to  the  castle  of  Loyola,  kissed  the  hal¬ 
lowed  ground,  and  then  burying  himself  in  a  Jesuit  College 


380 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


at  Ognato,  once  more  awaited  the  decision  of  the  emperor. 
It  soon  arrived.  He  was  no  longer  a  duke,  a  knight  of 
St.  Iago,  nor  even  a  Spanish  gentleman.  Solemnly,  and 
in  due  legal  form,  he  renounced  all  these  titles,  and  with 
them  all  his  property  and  territorial  rights.  Even  his  secu¬ 
lar  dress  was  laid  aside,  and  his  head  was  prepared  by  the 
tonsure  for  the  Episcopal  touch,  emblematic  of  the  most 
awful  mystery.  The  astonished  spectators  collected  and 
preserved  the  holy  relics.  And  now  bent  in  lowly  pros¬ 
tration  before  the  altar  at  Ognato,  the  Father  Francis  had 
no  farther  sacrifice  to  offer  there,  but  the  sacrifice  of  a  heart 
emptied  of  all  the  interests  and  of  all  the  affections  of  the 
world.  Long  and  silent  was  his  prayer,  but  it  was  now 
unattended  with  any  trace  of  disorder.  The  tears  he  shed 
were  such  as  might  have  bedewed  the  cheek  of  the  First 
Man  before  he  had  tasted  the  bitterness  of  sin.  He  rose 
from  his  knees,  bade  a  last  farewell  to  his  attendants;  and 
Father  Francis  was  left  alone  with  his  Creator. 

It  was  a  solitude  not  long  to  be  maintained.  The  fame 
of  his  devotion  filled  the  Peninsula.  All  who  needed  spi¬ 
ritual  counsel,  and  who  wished  to  indulge  an  idle  curiosity, 
resorted  to  his  cell.  Kings  sought  his  advice,  wondering 
congregations  hung  on  his  lips,  and  two  at  least  of  the 
grandees  of  Spain  imitated  his  example.  His  spiritual 
triumphs  were  daily  more  and  more  splendid;  and,  if  he 
might  escape  the  still  threatened  promotion  into  the  col¬ 
lege  of  Cardinals,  might  be  as  enduring  as  his  life.  The 
authority  of  Ignatius,  not  unaided  by  some  equivocal  ex¬ 
ercise  of  his  ingenuity,  at  length  placed  Father  Francis 
beyond  the  reach  of  this  last  danger.  They  both  went 
down  to  the  grave  without  witnessing  the  debasement  of 
their  order  by  any  ecclesiastical  dignity. 

But  there  was  yet  one  tie  to  the  pomp  and  vanity  of  this 
world,  which  could  not  be  entirely  broken.  During  his 
viceregal  administration,  Father  Francis  had  on  one  occasion 
traversed  the  halls  of  the  Castle  of  Barcelona  in  deep  and 
secret  conference  with  his  imperial  cousin.  Each  at  that 
interview  imparted  to  the  other  his  design  of  devoting  to 
religious  retirement  the  interval  which  should  intervene 
between  the  business  and  the  close  of  life.  At  every  sea¬ 
son  of  disappointment  Charles  reverted  to  this  purpose, 
and  abandoned  or  postponed  it  with  each  return  of  suc¬ 
cess.  But  now,  broken  with  sickness  and  sorrow,  he  had 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES, 


381 


fixed  his  residence  in  a  monastery  in  Estremadura,  and 
summoned  the  former  viceroy  of  Catalonia  to  the  presence 
of  his  early  friend  and  patron.  Falling  on  his  knees,  as  in 
times  of  yore,  Father  Francis  offered  to  impress  the  kiss 
of  homage  on  the  hand  which  had  so  lately  borne  the  scep¬ 
tre  of  half  the  civilized  world.  But  Charles  embraced  his 
cousin,  and  compelled  him  to  sit,  and  to  sit  covered,  by 
his  side.  Long  and  frequent  were  their  conversations;  but 
the  record  of  them  transmitted  to  us  by  the  historians  of 
the  Order  of  Jesus,  has  but  little  semblance  of  authen¬ 
ticity.  Charles  assails,  and  Borgia  defends  the  new  In¬ 
stitute,  and  the  imperial  disputant  of  course  yields  to  the 
combined  force  of  eloquence  and  truth.  It  seems  less  im¬ 
probable  that  the  publication  of  Memoirs  of  the  life  of  the 
Emperor,  to  be  written  by  himself,  was  one  subject  of  se¬ 
rious  debate  at  these  interviews,  and  that  the  good  father 
dissuaded  it.  If  the  tale  be  true,  he  has  certainly  one 
claim  the  less  to  the  gratitude  of  later  times.  What  seems 
certain  is,  that  he  undertook  and  executed  some  secret 
mission  from  Charles  to  the  court  of  Portugal,  that  he  acted 
as  one  of  the  executors  of  his  will,  and  delivered  a  funeral 
oration  in  praise  of  the  deceased  emperor  before  the  Spa¬ 
nish  court  at  Valladolid. 

From  this  point,  the  life  of  Borgia  merges  in  the  general 
history  of  the  order  to  which  he  had  attached  himself.  It 
is  a  passage  of  history  full  of  the  miracles  of  self-denial, 
and  of  miracles  in  the  more  accurate  acceptation  of  the 
word.  To  advance  the  cause  of  education,  and  to  place  in 
the  hands  of  his  own  society  the  control  of  that  mighty 
engine,  was  the  labour  which  Father  Francis  as  their 
General  chiefly  proposed  to  himself.  His  success  was 
complete,  and  he  lived  to  see  the  establishment,  in  almost 
every  state  of  Europe,  of  colleges  formed  on  the  model 
of  that  which  he  had  himself  formed  in  the  town  of  Gan- 
dia. 

Borgia  is  celebrated  by  his  admirers  as  the  most  illus¬ 
trious  of  all  conquerors  of  the  appetites  and  passions  of  our 
common  nature;  and  the  praise,  such  as  it  is,  may  well  be 
conceded  to  him.  No  other  saint  in  the  calendar  ever  ab¬ 
dicated  or  declined  so  great  an  amount  of  worldly  grandeur 
and  domestic  happiness.  No  other  embraced  poverty  and 
pain  in  forms  more  squalid,  or  more  revolting  to  flesh  and 
blood.  So  strange  and  shocking  are  the  stories  of  his  fla- 


382 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


t 


gellations,  of  the  diseases  contracted  by  them,  and  of  the 
sickening  practices  by  which  he  tormented  his  senses,  that 
even  to  read  them  is  of  itself  no  light  penance.  In  the 
same  spirit,  our  applause  is  demanded  for  feats  of  humility, 
and  prodigies  of  obedience,  and  raptures  of  devotion,  so 
extravagant,  that  his  biographers  might  seem  to  have  as¬ 
sumed  the  office  of  penitential  executors  to  the  saint;  and 
to  challenge  for  his  memory  some  of  the  disgust  and  con¬ 
tempt  which  when  living  he  so  studiously  courted.  And 
yet  Borgia  was  no  ordinary  man. 

lie  had  great  talents  with  a  narrow  capacity.  Under  the 
control  of  minds  more  comprehensive  than  his  own,  he 
could  adopt  and  execute  their  wider  views  with  admirable 
address  and  vigour.  With  rare  powers  both  of  endurance 
and  of  action,  he  was  the  prey  of  a  constitutional  melan¬ 
choly,  which  made  him  dependent  on  the  more  sanguine 
spirit  of  his  guides  for  all  his  aims  and  for  all  his  hopes; 
but  once  rescued  from  the  agony  of  selecting  his  path,  he 
moved  along  it  not  merely  with  firmness  but  with  impe¬ 
tuosity.  All  his  impulses  came  from  without;  but  when 
once  given  they  could  not  readily  be  arrested.  The  very 
dejection  and  self-distrust  of  his  nature  rendered  him  more 
liable  than  other  men  to  impressions  at  once  deep  and 
abiding.  Thus  he  was  a  saint  in  his  infancy  at  the  bidding 
of  his  nurse-then  a  cavalier  at  the  command  of  his  uncle 
- — an  inamorato  because  the  empress  desired  it — a  warrior 
and  a  viceroy  because  such  was  the  pleasure  of  Charles — 
a  devotee  from  seeing  a  corpse  in  a  state  of  decomposition 
—a  founder  of  colleges  on  the  advice  of  Peter  Faber — a 
Jesuit  at  the  will  of  Ignatius — and  General  of  the  order 
because  his  colleagues  would  have  it  so.  Yet  each  of 
these  characters  when  once  assumed,  was  performed,  not 
merely  with  constancy,  but  with  high  and  just  applause. 
His  mind  was  like  a  sycophant  plant,  feeble  when  alone, 
but  of  admirable  vigour  and  luxuriance  when  properly  sus¬ 
tained.  A  whole  creation  of  such  men  would  have  been 
unequal  to  the  work  of  Ignatius  Loyola;  but,  in  his  grasp, 
one  such  man  could  perform  a  splendid  though  but  a 
secondary  service.  His  life  was  more  eloquent  than  all 
the  homilies  of  Chrysostom.  Descending  from  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  heights  of  human  prosperity,  he  exhibited 
every  where,  and  in  an  aspect  the  most  intelligible  and 
impressive  to  his  contemporaries,  the  awful  power  of  the 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


383 


principles  by  which  he  was  impelled.  Had  he  lived  in 
the  times  and  in  the  society  of  his  infamous  kinsmen,  Bor¬ 
gia  would  not  improbably  have  shared  their  disastrous  re¬ 
nown.  But  his  dependent  nature,  moulded  by  a  far  dif¬ 
ferent  influence,  rendered  him  a  canonized  saint;  an  ho¬ 
nourable,  just  and  virtuous  man;  one  of  the  most  eminent 
ministers  of  a  polity  as  benevolent  in  intention  as  it  was 
gigantic  in  design;  and  the  founder  of  a  system  of  education 
pregnant  with  results  of  almost  matchless  importance.  His 
miracles  may  be  not  disadvantageously  compared  with  those 
of  the  Baron  Monchausen;  but  it  would  be  less  easy  to  find 
a  meet  comparison  for  his  genuine  virtues.  They  triumph 
over  all  the  silly  legends  and  all  the  real  follies  which  ob¬ 
scure  his  character.  His  whole  mature  life  was  but  one 
protracted  martyrdom,  for  the  advancement  of  what  he  es¬ 
teemed  the  perfection  of  his  own  nature,  and  the  highest 
interests  of  his  fellow-men.  Though  he  maintained  an  inti¬ 
mate  personal  intercourse  with  Charles  IX.  and  his  mother, 
and  enjoyed  their  highest  favour,  there  is  no  reason  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  he  was  intrusted  with  their  atrocious  secret.  Even 
in  the  land  of  the  Inquisition  he  had  firmly  refused  to  lend 
the  influence  of  his  name  to  that  sanguinary  tribunal;  for 
there  was  nothing  morose  in  his  fanaticism,  nor  mean  in 
his  subservience.  Such  a  man  as  Francis  Borgia  could 
hardly  become  a  persecutor.  His  own  church  raised  altars 
to  his  name.  Other  churches  have  neglected  or  despised 
it.  In  that  all-wise  and  all-compassionate  judgment,  which 
is  uninvaded  by  our  narrow  prejudices  and  by  our  unhal¬ 
lowed  feelings,  his  fervent  love  of  God  and  of  man  was 
doubtless  permitted  to  cover  the  multitude  of  his  theoretical 
errors  and  real  extravagances.  Human  justice  is  severe, 
not  merely  because  man  is  censorious,  but  because  he  rea¬ 
sonably  distrusts  himself,  and  fears  lest  his  weakness  should 
confound  the  distinctions  of  good  and  evil.  Divine  justice 
is  lenient,  because  there  alone  love  can  flow  in  all  its  un¬ 
fathomable  depths  and  boundless  expansion — impeded  by 
no  dread  of  error,  and  diverted  by  no  misplaced  sympathies. 

To  Ignatius,  the  founder  of  the  order  of  the  Jesuits;  to 
Xavier,  the  great  leader  in  their  missionary  enterprises;  to 
Laynez,  the  author  of  their  peculiar  system  of  theology; 
and  to  Borgia,  the  architect  of  their  system  of  education, 
two  names  are  to  be  added  to  complete  the  roll  of  the 
great  men  from  whose  hands  their  Institute  received  the 


384 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


form  it  retains  to  the  present  hour.  These  are  Bellarmine, 
from  whom  they  learned  the  arts  and  resources  of  contro¬ 
versy;  and  Acquaviva,  the  fifth  in  number,  but  in  effect 
the  fourth  of  their  Generals — who  may  be  described  as 
the  Numa  Pompilius  of  the  order.  There  is  in  the  early 
life  of  Bellarmine  a  kind  of  pastoral  beauty,  and  even  in 
his  later  days  a  grace,  and  a  simplicity  so  winning,  that  it 
costs  some  effort  to  leave  such  a  theme  unattempted.  The 
character  of  Acquaviva,  one  of  the  most  memorable  rulers 
and  lawgivers  of  his  age,  it  would  be  a  still  greater  effort 
to  attempt. 

“Henceforth  let  no  man  say,”  (to  mount  on  the  stilts  of 
dear  old  Samuel  Johnson)  “come,  I  will  write  a  disquisi¬ 
tion  on  the  history,  the  doctrines,  and  the  morality  of  the 
Jesuits — at  least  let  no  man  say  so  who  has  not  subdued  the 
lust  of  story-telling.”  Filled  to  their  utmost  limits,  lie  be¬ 
fore  us  the  sheets  so  recently  destined  to  that  ambitious 
enterprise.  Perhaps  it  may  be  as  well  thus  to  have  yield¬ 
ed  to  the  allurement  which  has  marred  the  original  de¬ 
sign.  If  in  later  days  the  disciples  of  Ignatius,  obeying  the 
laws  of  all  human  institutions,  have  exhibited  the  sure 
though  slow  development  of  the  seeds  of  error  and  of 
crime,  sown  by  the  authors  of  their  polity,  it  must  at  least 
be  admitted  that  they  were  men  of  no  common  mould.  It 
is  something  to  know  that  an  impulse,  which  after  three 
centuries  is  still  unspent,  proceeded  from  hands  of  gigantic 
power,  and  that  their  power  was  moral  as  much  as  intel¬ 
lectual,  or  much  more  so.  In  our  own  times  much  indig¬ 
nation  and  much  alarm  are  thrown  away  on  innovators  of 
a  very  different  stamp.  From  the  ascetics  of  the  common 
room,  from  men  whose  courage  rises  high  enough  only  to 
hint  at  their  unpopular  opinions,  and  whose  belligerent 
passions  soar  at  nothing  more  daring  than  to  worry  some 
unfortunate  professor,  it  is  almost  ludicrous  to  fear  any 
great  movement  on  the  theatre  of  human  affairs.  When 
we  see  these  dainty  gentlemen  in  rags,  and  hear  of  them 
from  the  snows  of  the  Himinalaya,  we  may  begin  to  trem¬ 
ble.  The  slave  of  his  own  appetites,  in  bondage  to  con¬ 
ventional  laws,  his  spirit  emasculated  by  the  indulgences, 
or  corroded  by  the  cares  of  life,  hardly  daring  to  act,  to 
speak,  or  to  think  for  himself,  man — gregarious  and  ido¬ 
latrous  man — worships  the  world  in  which  he  lives,  adopts 
its  maxims,  and  tread  its  beaten  paths.  To  rouse  him 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 


385 


from  his  lethargy,  and  to  give  a  new  current  to  his  thoughts 
heroes  appear  from  time  to  time  on  the  verge  of  his  ho¬ 
rizon,  and  hero-worship,  Pagan  or  Christian,  withdraws 
him  for  awhile  from  still  baser  idolatry.  To  contemplate 
the  motives  and  the  career  of  such  men,  may  teach  much 
which  well  deserves  the  knowing;  but  nothing  more  clearly 
than  this — that  no  one  can  have  shrines  erected  to  his  me¬ 
mory  in  the  hearts  of  men  of  distant  generations,  unless 
his  own  heart  was  an  altar  on  which  daily  sacrifices  of 
fervent  devotion,  and  magnanimous  self-denial,  were  offered 
to  the  only  true  object  of  human  worship. 


33 


TAYLOR’S  EDWIN  THE  FAIR.* 


(Edinburgh  Review,  1843.) 

This  is  a  dramatic  poem  full  of  life  and  beauty,  thronged 
with  picturesque  groups,  and  with  characters  profoundly 
discriminated.  They  converse  in  language  the  most  chaste, 
harmonious,  and  energetic.  In  due  season  fearful  calami¬ 
ties  strike  down  the  lovely  and  the  good.  Yet  “  Edwin 
the  Fair  ”  is  not  to  be  classed  among  tragedies,  in  the  full 
and  exact  sense  of  the  expression. 

“  To  purge  the  soul  by  pity  and  terror,”  it  is  not  enough 
that  the  stage  should  exhibit  those  who  tread  the  high 
places  of  the  earth  as  victims  either  of  unmerited  distress, 
or  of  retributive  justice.  It  is  farther  necessary  that  their 
sorrows  should  be  deviations  from  the  usual  economy  of 
human  life.  They  must  differ  in  their  origin,  and  their 
character,  from  those  ills  which  we  have  learned  to  re¬ 
gard  as  merely  the  established  results  of  familiar  causes. 
They  must  be  attended  by  the  rustling  of  the  dark  wings 
of  fate,  or  by  the  still  more  awful  march  of  an  all-control¬ 
ling  Providence.  The  domain  of  the  tragic  theatre  lies  in 
that  dim  region  where  the  visible  and  invisible  worlds  are 
brought  into  contact;  and  where  the  wise  and  the  simple 
alike  perceive  and  acknowledge  a -present  deity,  or  demon. 
It  is  by  the  shocks  and  abrupt  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  that 
the  dormant  sense  of  our  dependence  on  that  inscrutable 
power  in  the  grasp  of  which  we  lie,  is  quickened  into 
life.  It  is  during  such  transient  dispersion  of  the  clouds 
beneath  which  it  is  at  other  times  concealed,  that  we  feel 
the  agency  of  heaven  in  the  affairs  of  earth  to  be  a  reality 
and  a  truth.  It  is  in  such  occurrences  alone  (distinguished 
in  popular  language  from  the  rest,  as  providential)  that  the 
elements  of  tragedy  are  to  be  found  in  actual  or  imaginable 
combination.  There  the  disclosure  of  the  laws  of  the  uni¬ 
versal  theocracy  imparts  to  the  scene  an  unrivalled  interest, 
and  to  the  actors  in  it  the  dignity  of  ministers  of  the  will 

*Edwin  the  Fair:  an  Historical  Drama.  By  Henry  Taylor,  au¬ 
thor  of  “  Philip  Vail  Artevelde.”  London:  12mo.  1842. 


Taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


387 


of  the  Supreme.  There  each  event  exhibits  some  new  and 
sublime  aspect  of  the  divine  energy  working  out  the  divine 
purposes.  There  the  great  enigmas  of  our  existence,  re¬ 
ceive  at  least  a  partial  solution.  There,  even  amidst  the 
seeming  triumph  of  wrong,  may  be  traced  the  dispensation 
of  justice  to  which  the  dramatist  is  bound;  and  there  also 
extends  before  his  view  a  field  of  meditation  drawn  from 
themes  of  surpassing  majesty  and  pathos. 

Such  is  the  law  to  which  all  the  great  tragic  writers  of 
ancient  or  of  modern  times  have  submitted  themselves — 
each  in  his  turn  assuming  this  high  office  of  interpreting 
the  movements  of  Providence,  and  reconciling  man  to  the 
mysteries  of  his  being.  Thus  Job  is  the  stoic  of  the  de- 

•  sert — victorious  over  all  the  persecutions  of  Satan,  till  the 
ts  better  sense  of  unjust  reproach  and  undeserved  punishment 

breaks  forth  in  agonies  which  the  descending  Deity  rebukes, 
silences,  and  soothes.  Prometheus  is  the  temporary  tri¬ 
umph  over  beneficence,  of  a  power  at  once  malignant  and 
omnipotent,  which,  at  the  command  of  destiny,  is  blindly 
rushing  on  towards  the  universal  catastrophe  which  is  to 
overwhelm  and  ruin  all  things.  Agamemnon  returns  in 
triumph  to  a  home,  where,  during  his  long  absence,  the 
avenging  Furies  have  been  couching  to  spring  at  last  on 

•  the  unhappy  son  of  Atreus — every  hand  in  that  fated  house 
draping  with  gore,  and  every  voice  uttering  the  male¬ 
dictions  of  the  infernals.  GEdipus,  and  his  sons  and  daugh¬ 
ters,  represent  a  succession  of  calamities  and  crimes  which 
would  seem  to  exhaust  the  catalogue  of  human  wretched¬ 
ness;  but  each  in  turn  is  made  to  exhibit  the  working  of 
one  of  the  most  awful  of  the  laws  under  which  wre  live — 
the  visitation  of  the  sins  of  parents  upon  their  children 
to  the  third  and  fourth  generation.  Macbeth  is  seduced 
by  demoniacal  predictions  to  accomplish  the  purposes, 
by  violating  the  commands,  of  Heaven,  and  so  to  me¬ 
ditate,  to  extenuate,  and  to  commit,  the  crimes  suggested 
bv  the  Fiend  in  cruel  mockery.  Hamlet  is  at  once  the 
reluctant  minister  and  the  innocent  victim  of  the  retributive 
justice  to  the  execution  of  which  he  is  goaded  by  a  voice 
from  the  world  of  departed  spirits.  Lear  is  crushed  amidst 
the  ruins  of  his  house,  on  which  parental  injustice,  filial 
impiety,  foul  lusts,  and  treacherous  murder,  had  combined 
to  draw  down  the  curse  of  the  avenger.  Faust  moves  on 
towards  destruction  under  the  guidance  of  the  Fiend,  who 


388 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


lures  him  by  the  pride  of  knowledge  and  the  force  of  ap¬ 
petite.  Wallenstein  plunges  into  destruction,  drawing  down 
with  him  the  faithful  and  the  good,  as  a  kind  of  bloody  sac¬ 
rifice,  to  atone  for  treachery  to  which  the  aspect  of  the  stars 
and  the  predictions  of  the  diviner  had  impelled  him.  And 
so,  through  every  other  tragic  drama  which  has  awakened 
the  deeper  emotions  of  the  spectator  or  the  reader,  might 
be  traced  the  operation  of  the  law  to  which  we  have  re¬ 
ferred.  How  far  this  universal  characteristic  of  tragedy — 
the  perceptible  intervention  in  human  affairs  of  powers 
more  than  human — is  to  be  discovered  in  “Edwin  the 
Fair,”  the  following  brief  and  imperfect  outline  of  the  plot 
may  sufficiently  determine. 

In  the  fresh  and  dewy  dawn  of  life,  Edwin  and  Elgiva 
had  been  wont  to  rove — * 

“  O’er  hill,  through  dale,  with  interlacing  arms, 

And  thrid  the  thickets  where  wild  roses  grow, 

Entangled  with  each  other  like  themselves.” 

But  their  sun  had  scarcely  risen  above  the  eastern  hori¬ 
zon  when  the  dreams  of  childhood  faded  away  before  the 
illusions  of  youth.  He  ascended  the  Anglo-Saxon  throne, 
and  she  plighted  her  troth  to  Earl  Leolf,  the  commander  of 
the  English  armies.  The  Earl  was  “  a  man  in  middle  age, 
busy  and  hard  to  please,”  and  not  happy  in  the  art  of 
pleasing.  Such,  at  least,  was  the  more  deliberate  opinion 
or  feeling  of  Elgiva.  In  a  day  of  evil  augury  to  herself, 
and  to  her  house,  the  inconstant  maiden  crushed  the  hopes 
of  her  grave,  though  generous  suitor,  to  share  the  crown  of 
her  early  playmate. 

It  sat  neither  firmly  nor  easily  on  his  brows.  Athulf, 
the  brother,  and  Leolf,  the  discarded  suitor  of  his  queen, 
were  the  chief  opponents  of  the  powerful  body  which,  un¬ 
der  the  guidance  of  Dunstan,  were  rapidly  extending  over 
the  monarchy,  and  the  Church  of  England,  the  authority 
of  the  monastic  orders.  In  the  approaching  alliance  of 
Athulf’s  family  to  Edwin,  the  Abbot  of  Glastonbury  fore¬ 
saw  the  transfer,  to  a  hostile  party,  of  his  own  dominion 
over  the  mind  of  his  young  sovereign.  Events  had  oc¬ 
curred  to  enhance  and  justify  his  solicitude.  Athulf  s  ener¬ 
gy  had  enabled  Edwin  to  baffle  the  pretexts  by  which 
Dunstan  had  delayed  his  coronation.  It  was  celebrated 
with  becoming  splendour,  and  was  followed  by  a  royal 


Taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


389 


banquet.  The  moment  appeared  to  the  king  propitious 
for  avoiding  the  vigilant  eye  of  his  formidable  minister. 
He  escaped  from  the  noisy  revels,  and  flew  on  the  wings 
of  love  to  an  adjacent  oratory,  where,  before  his  absence 
had  excited  the  notice  and  displeasure  of  his  guests,  he  ex¬ 
changed  with  Elgiva  the  vows  which  bound  them  to  each 
other  till  death  should  break,  the  bond.  They  little  dreamed 
how  soon  it  should  thus  be  broken.  Reseniing  the  indig¬ 
nity  of  the  king’s  abrupt  desertion  of  the  festive  board,  the 
assembled  nobles  deputed  the  Abbot  and  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  to  solicit,  and  if  necessary  to  compel  his 
return.  They  found  him  in  the  society  of  his  newly-affi¬ 
anced  bride,  and  assailed  them  with  gross  imputations, 
which  she  indignantly  repelled  by  an  open  avowal  of  her 
marriage.  Availing  himself  of  the  disorder  of  the  moment, 
and  of  the  canonical  objections  to  their  union,  founded  on 
their  too  near  consanguinity,  Dunstan  caused  them  to  be 
seized  and  imprisoned.  Elgiva  was  despatched  to  Ches¬ 
ter,  the  King  and  Athulf  being  secured  in  the  Tower  of 
London. 

Leolf,  who  had  absented  himself  from  the  coronation, 
was  in  command  of  the  royal  forces  at  Tunbridge,  where 
he  was  quickly  joined  by  Athulf,  who  had  found  the  means 
of  escaping  from  prison.  The  two  earls  then  separated — 
Leolf  proceeding  to  the  north,  with  a  part  of  the  army,  to 
rescue  Elgiva,  and  Athulf  assuming  the  conduct  of  the  power 
destined  for  the  deliverance  of  the  King. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  indignation  of  the  con¬ 
federate  lords,  their  policy  dictated  pacific  measures;  and 
to  these  the  Archbishop,  offended  and  alarmed  by  the  au¬ 
dacity  of  Dunstan,  willingly  lent  himself.  He  convened  a 
synod  to  deliberate  on  the  validity  of  the  royal  marriage, 
and  on  the  propriety  of  applying  to  Rome  for  a  dispensa¬ 
tion.  Long  and  fervent  debate  ensued.  The  Church  as 
represented  in  that  holy  conclave,  had  given  strong  indi¬ 
cations  of  a  conciliatory  spirit,  when,  casting  himself,  in  ve¬ 
hement  prayer  before  a  crucifix,  Dunstan  invoked  the  de¬ 
cision  of  Him  whose  sacred  image  it  bore.  An  audible 
voice,  which  seemed  to  proceed  from  the  cross,  (though  re¬ 
ally  uttered  by  a  minister  of  the  Abbot’s  crimes,  who  had 
been  concealed  for  the  purpose  within  its  ample  cavity,) 
forbade  the  ratification  of  the  royal  nuptials.  Rising  from 
the  earth,  the  holy  Abbot  pronounced  a  solemn  excomrau- 

33* 


390 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


nieation  of  Edwin,  Elgiva,  and  their  adherents,  and  dis¬ 
missed  the  assembly  which  had  so  vainly  attempted  to 
defeat  the  will  of  heaven,  and  of  heaven’s  chosen  minis¬ 
ter. 

The  triumphant  Dunstan  then  proceeded  to  the  Tower, 
to  obtain  from  the  captive  and  excommunicated  King  the 
abdication  of  his  crown.  He  was  answered  by  indignant 
reproaches,  and  at  length  withdrew,  but  not  till  he  had  sum¬ 
moned  into  the  royal  presence  an  assassin,  prepared  to 
bring  the  controversy  to  a  decisive  and  bloody  close.  At 
that  instant  Athulf  with  his  forees  burst  into  the  Tower. 
Edwin  regained  his  freedom,  and  Dunstan  fled  in  disguise 
into  H  ampshire. 

But  the  saint  of  Glastonbury  possessed  too  powerful  a 
hold  on  the  attachment  and  reverence  of  the  multitude,  to 
he  thus  defeated  by  any  blow  however  severe,  or  by  any 
exposture  however  disgraceful.  A  popular  insurrection  in 
his  favour  arrested  his  flight  to  France.  He  resumed  his 
self-confidence,  appeared  again  in  his  proper  character,  and 
lifted  up  his  mitred  front,  with  its  wonted  superiority,  in 
a  Wittenagemot  which  he  convened  at  Malpas.  There, 
surrounded  by  his  adherents  and  his  military  retainers,  he 
openly  denounced  war  on  his  sovereign. 

Under  the  guidance  of  Athulf,  the  King  had  moved  from 
London  towards  Chester,  to  effect  a  junction  with  Leolf 
and  his  army.  The  attempt  was  not  successful.  Impa¬ 
tient  of  her  prison,  Elgiva  had  exercised  over  her  jailer 
the  spell  of  her  rank  and  beauty,  and  had  rendered  him  at 
once  the  willing  instrument  and  the  companion  of  her 
escape.  Leolf  was  apprized  of  her  design,  and  anxious  for 
the  safety  of  her  who  had  so  ill-requited  his  devotion,  ad¬ 
vanced  to  meet  her,  supported  only  by  a  small  party  of  his 
personal  attendants.  They  met,  and,  while  urging  their 
flight  to  Leolf’s  army,  were  overtaken  by  a  party  attached 
to  the  cause  of  Dunstan,  and  slain. 

For  this  catastrophe  Dunstan  was  not,  in  intention  at 
least,  responsible.  Alarmed  by  intelligence  of  a  Danish 
invasion,  he  had  become  desirous  of  a  reconciliation  with 
Edwin,  and  was  making  overtures  for  that  purpose.  But 
it  was  now  too  late.  The  king,  maddened  by  the  loss  of 
Elgiva,  rushed  forward  with  blind  and  precipitate  haste 
to  Malpas,  where  the  body  of  his  murdered  wife  awaited 
a  royal  sepulture,  and  where  was  intrenched  the  haughty 


Taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


39 1 


rebel  who  had  brought  her  down  to  a  premature  grave. 
Deaf  to  every  voice  but  that  which  from  the  inmost  recesses 
of  his  soul  cried  for  revenge,  Edwin  plunged  wildly  into 
his  fate.  Covered  with  wounds,  he  fell  once  more  into 
the  toils  of  his  deadly  enemy.  An  awful  sound  recalled 
him  to  momentary  animation  and  strength.  It  was  the  low 
dirge  from  the  choir  of  the  neighbouring  cathedral,  chant¬ 
ing  the  funeral  obsequies  of  Elgiva.  He  flew  from  his 
dying  couch,  cast  himself  with  delirious  ravings  on  her 
cold  and  inanimate  form,  and  then,  invoking  the  vengeance 
of  heaven  on  tiieir  persecutor,  descended  with  her  to  the 
grave. 

Incomplete,  and  therefore  inaccurate,  as  it  is,  this  slight 
abridgment  of  the  tale  will  show,  that  the  dramatic  action 
of  “  Edwin  the  Fair  ”  is  rather  disastrous  than  tragical. 
We  witness,  indeed,  the  deadly  conflict  of  thrones,  spiri¬ 
tual  and  temporal.  The  Sceptre  falls  from  a  feeble  grasp, 
and  the  Crozier  is  elevated  in  sanguinary  triumph.  But  it 
is  the  triumph  of  power  over  weakness,  of  craft  over  sim¬ 
plicity,  of  mature  worldly  wisdom  over  childish  inexperi¬ 
ence.  An  overwhelming  calamity  befalls  Edwin  and  Elgiva, 
but  it  is  provoked  neither  by  any  gigantic  guilt,  nor  by  any 
magnanimous  self-devotion.  They  perish,  the  victims  of 
imprudence  rather  than  of  crime — of  a  rash  marriage  and 
a  venial  inconstancy.  This  is  quite  probable — quite  in 
accordance  with  truths  to  be  gathered  from  the  experience 
of  each  passing  day;  but  for  that  very  reason,  it  is  a  fable 
which  does  not  fulfil  the  laws  imposed  on  the  stage  by  iEs- 
chylus  and  Shakspeare — by  their  imitators  and  their  critics 
—or  rather  by  reason  and  nature  herself.  It  does  not 
break  up  our  torpid  habitual  associations.  It  excites  no 
intense  sympathy.  It  gives  birth  to  no  deep  emotion,  ex¬ 
cept,  indeed,  regret  that  vengeance  does  not  strike  down 
the  oppressor.  There  is  a  failure  of  poetical  justice  in  the 
progress  and  in  the  catastrophe  of  the  drama.  If  it  were  a 
passage  of  authentic  history,  the  mind  might  repose  in  the 
conviction  that  the  Judge  of  all  must  eventually  do  right. 
But  as  it  is  a  fiction,  it  is  impossible  not  to  repine  that  right 
is  not  actually  done.  Such  unmerited  disasters  and  pros¬ 
perous  injustice  are,  we  know,  consistent  with  the  presence 
of  a  superintending  Deity.  But  they  do  not  suggest  it. 
The  handwriting  on  the  wall  has  no  pregnant  meaning, 
nor  mythic  significancy.  It  is  not  apparently  traced  by 


392 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


the  Divine  finger,  nor  has  the  Seer  given  us  any  inspired 
interpretation.  It  is  one  of  those  legends  from  which  a 
moralist  might  deduce  important  lessons  of  prudence,  but 
from  which  a  dramatist  could  hardly  evoke  a  living  picture 
of  the  destiny  of  man; — of  man  opposed  and  aided  by 
powers  mightier  than  his  own,  engaged  in  an  unequal 
though  most  momentous  conflict,  impotent  even  when  vic¬ 
torious,  and  majestic  even  when  subdued. 

This  objection  to  the  plot  of  his  drama  has  evidently 
been  anticipated  by  Mr.  Taylor  himself.  He  summons 
some  dark  clouds  to  gather  around  Dunstan  at  the  moment 
of  his  success,  and  dismisses  him  from  our  view,  oppressed 
by  the  only  domestic  sorrow  to  which  his  heart  was  acces¬ 
sible,  and  by  omens  of  approaching  calamity  from  an  in¬ 
road  of  the  Northmen.  Thus  the  triumph  of  the  wicked 
is  tempered,  and  some  endeavour  is  made  to  gratify,  as 
well  as  to  excite,  the  thirst  for  his  punishment.  It  is 
hardly  a  successful  attempt.  The  loss  in.  mature  life  of  an 
aged  mother,  is  a  sorrow  too  familiar  and  transitory  to  be 
accepted  as  a  retribution  for  crimes  of  the  deepest  dye;  and 
war,  however  disastrous  to  others,  has  seldom  any  depress¬ 
ing  terrors  for  the  rulers  of  mankind.  Besides,  there  are 
yet  some  fetters,  however  light,  which  chronology  will 
throw  over  the  volatile  spirit  of  poetry;  and  it  is  hard  to 
forget  the  historical  fact,  that  no  Danish  invasion  ever  dis¬ 
turbed  the  tranquillity  of  Dunstan;  but  that  he  lived  and  died 
in  that  century  of  repose,  for  which  England  was  indebted 
to  the  wisdom  and  the  valour  of  the  two  great  predecessors 
of  Edwin. 

Mr.  Taylor  has  therefore  employed  another  and  more  ef¬ 
fectual  resource  to  relieve  the  inherent  defects  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  he  has  chosen.  He  avails  himself  of  the  opportunity  it 
affords  for  the  delineation  and  contrast  of  characters,  which 
he  throws  off  with  a  careless  prodigality,  attesting  an  al¬ 
most  inexhaustible  affluence.  In  every  passage  where  the 
interest  of  the  story  droops,  it  is  sustained  by  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  some  new  person  of  the  drama,  who  is  not  a  mere 
fiction,  but  a  reality  with  a  fictitious  name.  The  stage  is 
not  possessed  by  its  ancient  tenants  provided  with  a  new 
set  of  speeches,  but  with  recruits,  who  present  some  of  the 
many  aspects  under  which  man  has  actually  presented  him¬ 
self  to  a  most  sagacious  and  diligent  observer.  This,  how¬ 
ever,  is  not  true  of  Dunstan,  the  most  conspicuous  of  all 


taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


393 


those  who  contribute  to  the  action  or  to  the  dialogue.  He 
is  drawn,  not  from  actual  life,  but  from  books.  In  the 
great  drama  of  society,  which  is  acted  in  our  age  on  the 
theatre  of  the  civilized  world,  no  part  has  been,  or  could  be* 
assigned  to  a  Spiritual  Despot,  in  which  to  disclose  freely 
the  propensities  and  the  mysteries  of  his  nature.  The 
poet  has  therefore  taken  the  outline  from  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chroniclers,  and  has  supplied  the  details  and  the  colouring 
from  his  own  imagination.  Hence  the  central  figure  is  less 
congruous — less  in  harmony  with  itself— than  those  of  the 
group  by  which  it  is  surrounded;  but  then  it  is  more  ideal, 
is  cast  in  bolder  relief,  and  is  thrown  off  with  greater  force 
and  freedom. 

The  real  Dunstan,  the  Recluse,  the  Saint,  and  the  States* 
man  of  the  Tenth  century,  had  his  full  share  of  the  incon¬ 
sistencies  which  distinguish  man  as  he  is,  from  man  as  he 
is  painted.  He  was  endowed  with  all  the  faculties  by 
which  great  actions  are  achieved,  and  with  the  tempera¬ 
ment  without  which  they  are  never  undertaken.  Conver¬ 
sant  in  his  early  manhood  with  every  science  by  which  so¬ 
cial  life  had  then  been  improved,  and  by  every  art  by  which 
it  had  been  embellished,  his  soul  was  agitated  by  ambition 
and  by  love.  Unprosperous  in  both,  his  wounded  spirit 
sought  relief  in  solitude  and  penitential  exercises;  and  an 
age  familiar  with  such  prodigies,  regarded  with  astonish¬ 
ment  and  reverence  the  austerity  of  his  self-discipline. 
When,  at  length,  he  emerged  from  the  grave,  (for  in  that 
similitude  he  had  dug  his  cell,)  he  was  supposed  by  others, 
and  probably  by  himself,  to  have  buried  there  all  the  tastes 
and  the  passions  which  had  once  enslaved  him  to  the  world. 
But  other  spirits  as  secular  as  the  first,  though  assuming  a 
holier  garb,  had  entered  his  bosom,  and  taken  up  their  abode 
there.  All  the  energies  once  wasted  on  letters,  music, 
painting,  and  science,  or  in  the  vain  worship  of  her  to 
whom  his  young  heart  had  been  devoted,  were  henceforth 
consecrated  to  the  church  and  to  his  order.  He  became 
the  foremost  champion  of  sacerdotal  celibacy  and  monastic 
retirement;  assumed  the  conduct  of  the  war  of  the  regular 
against  the  secular  clergy;  and  was  the  founder  of  the  ec¬ 
clesiastical  system  which  continued  for  five  centuries  to 
control  all  the  religious,  and  to  affect  all  the  political  in¬ 
stitutions  of  his  native  land. 

But  the  Severn  leaping  down  the  rocks  of  Plinlimmon, 


804 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


and  the  same  stream  when  expanded  into  a  muddy  and 
sluggish  estuary,  does  not  differ  more  from  itself,  than  St. 
Dunstan  the  Abbot  of  Glastonbury,  from  Dunstan  the  Me¬ 
tropolitan  of  the  Church,  and  the  Minister  of  the  Crown  of 
England.  During  five  successive  reigns,  all  the  powers  of 
the  government  were  in  his  hands,  but  he  ruled  ingloriously. 
When  his  supreme  power  had  once  been  firmly  secured,  all 
the  fire  and  genius  of  his  earlier  days  became  extinct.  With 
the  sublime  example  of  Alfred,  and  the  more  recent  glories  of 
Athelstan  before  his  eyes,  he  accomplished  nothing  and  at¬ 
tempted  nothing  for  the  permanent  welfare  of  his  country. 
No  one  social  improvement  can  be  traced  to  his  wisdom  or 
munificence.  He  had  none  of  the  vast  conceptions,  and 
splendid  aims,  which  have  ennobled  the  usurpations  of  so 
many  other  churchmen.  After  an  undisputed  possession 
of  power  of  forty  years’  continuance,  he  left  the  State  en¬ 
feebled,  and  the  Crown  in  hopeless  degradation.  To  him, 
more  than  to  any  man,  must  be  ascribed  the  ruin  of  the 
dynasty  under  which  he  flourished,  and  the  invasions  which 
desolated  the  kingdom  during  half  a  century  from  his  death. 
He  had  commanding  talents  and  dauntless  courage,  but  a 
low,  narrow,  selfish  spirit.  His  place  in  the  Roman  calen¬ 
dar  was  justly  assigned  to  him  in  acknowledgment  of  his 
incomparable  services  to  the  Papacy;  but  he  has  no  station 
in  the  calendar  of  the  great  and  good  men  who,  having  con¬ 
secrated  the  noblest  gifts  of  nature  and  of  fortune  to  their 
proper  ends,  live  for  the  benefit  of  all  generations,  and  are 
alike  revered  and  celebrated  by  all. 

The  Dunstan  of  this  tragedy  is  not  the  lordly  churchman 
reposing  in  the  plenitude  of  success,  but  the  fanatic  grasp¬ 
ing  at  supreme  command.  He  is  the  real  hero  of  “  Edwin 
the  Fair,’  towering  over  all  his  associates,  and  distinguished 
from  them  all  by  a  character,  which,  in  the  full  and  proper 
sense  of  the  term,  may  be  pronounced  to  be  dramatic.  He 
is  at  once  the  victim  of  religious  misanthropy  and  self¬ 
adoration.  He  has  worshipped  the  world,  lias  been  re¬ 
jected  by  his  idol,  and  has  turned  away  mortified,  but  not 
humbled,  to  meditate  holier  joys,  and  to  seek  an  eternal  re¬ 
compense.  But,  in  the  pursuit  of  these  sublime  objects, 
he  is  haunted  by  the  memory  of  the  delights  he  has  aban¬ 
doned,  and  of  the  injustice  which  has  expelled  him  from 
the  ways  and  the  society  of  mankind.  These  thoughts 
distil  their  bitterness  even  into  his  devotions.  His  social 


taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


395 


affections  droop  and  wither  as  their  proper  aliment  is  with¬ 
drawn.  His  irascible  feelings  deepen,  and  pass  into  habks 
of  fixed  antipathy  and  moroseness.  To  feed  these  gloomy 
passions  he  becomes  the  calumniator  of  his  species,  incre¬ 
dulous  of  human  virtue,  and  astute  in  every  uncharitable 
construction  of  human  motives.  His  malignity  establishes 
a  disastrous  alliance  with  his  disordered  piety.  He  as¬ 
cribes  to  the  Being  he  adores  the  foul  passions  which  fes¬ 
ter  in  his  own  bosom.  His  personal  wrongs  are  no  longer 
the  insignificant  ills  of  an  individual  sufferer,  nor  have  his 
personal  resentments  the  meanness  of  a  private  revenge — 
for  his  foes  are  antagonists  of  the  purposes  of  heaven;  and 
to  crush  them  can  be  no  unacceptable  homage  to  the  Su¬ 
preme  Arbiter  of  rewards  and  punishments.  With  the 
cold  unsocial  propensities  of  a  withered  heart,  disguised 
from  others  and  from  himself  by  the  sophistries  of  a  pal¬ 
sied  conscience,  Dunstan  finds  his  way  back  to  the  busy 
world.  He  lives  among  men  to  satiate  an  ambition  such 
as  might  be  indulged  by  an  incarnation  of  the  Evil  Spirit— 
an  ambition  exulting  in  conscious  superiority,  and  craving 
for  the  increase  and  the  display  of  it,  but  spurning  and 
trampling  in  the  dust  the  victims  over  whom  it  triumphs. 
Patriotism,  loyalty,  humility,  reverence — every  passion  by 
which  man  is  kind  to  his  brethren — all  are  dead  in  him ; 
and  an  intense  selfishness,  covered  by  holy  pretexts,  reigns 
in  undisputed  sovereignty  in  his  soul.  Man  is  but  the 
worthless  instrument  of  his  will;  and  even  to  his  Creator 
he  addresses  himself  with  the  unawed  familiarity  of  a  fa¬ 
vourite.  Proud,  icy-cold,  and  remorseless,  he  wades  through 
guilt  sneeringly  and  exultingly — the  subject  of  a  strange 
spiritual  disease,  compounded  of  a  paralysis  of  all  the  na¬ 
tural  sympathies,  and  a  morbid  vigour  of  all  the  mental  ener¬ 
gies.  This  portrait  is  terrible,  impressive,  and  (unhappily) 
not  improbable.  It  labours,  however,  under  one  inconsis¬ 
tency. 

The  fanaticism  of  Dunstan,  as  delineated  in  this  tragedy, 
is  wanting  in  one  essential  element.  He  has  no  profound 
or  deeply  cherished  convictions.  He  does  not  believe  him¬ 
self  to  be  the  selected  depositary  of  divine  truth.  He  does 
not  regard  dissent  from  his  own  opinions  as  criminal;  nor 
does  he  revel  in  any  vindictive  anticipations  of  the  ever¬ 
lasting  wo  of  his  theological  antagonists.  He  is  not  cling¬ 
ing  to  any  creed  which,  if  rejected  by  others,  may  elude 


396 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


his  own  grasp.  The  enemies  of  the  Church  are  indeed 
his  enemies;  but  they  are  so  because  they  endanger  his 
power,  not  because  they  disturb  the  repose  or  the  self- 
complacency  of  his  mind.  He  has  (to  borrow  the  distinc¬ 
tion  of  a  great  writer)  the  fanaticism  of  the  scourge,  the 
brand,  and  the  sword,  without  having  the  fanaticism  of  the 
creed.  He  is  a  fanatic,  without  being  an  enthusiast.  His 
guilt  is  not  extenuated  by  any  passionate  attachment  for 
truth  or  sanctity,  or  for  what  he  believes  to  be  true  and 
sacred.  He  rushes  into  oppression,  treachery,  fraud,  and 
plunder,  not  at  the  impulse  of  a  disordered  imagination, 
but  at  the  bidding  of  a  godless,  brotherless  heart. 

This  absence  of  theological  hatred,  founded  on  the  ear¬ 
nest  attachment  to  some  theological  opinions,  impairs  both 
the  congruity  and  the  terror  of  Dunstan’s  dramatic  charac¬ 
ter.  He  is  actuated  by  no  passion  intense  enough  to  pro¬ 
voke  such  enormous  guilt;  or  familiar  enough  to  bring  him 
within  the  range  of  our  sympathies;  or  natural  enough  to 
suggest,  that  some  conceivable  shifting  of  the  currents  of 
life  might  hurry  us  into  some  plunge  as  desperate  as  that 
which  we  see  him  making.  His  homicides  are  not  bloody 
sacrifices,  but  villanous  murders.  His  scourge  is  not  the 
thong  of  Dominic,  so  much  as  the  lash  with  which  Sancho 
(the  knave!)  imposes  on  the  credulity  of  his  master.  His 
impious  frauds  are  not  oracular  deceptions,  but  the  sleight- 
of-hand  tricks  of  a  juggler.  He  is  waited  on  by  an  imp  of 
darkness,  who  is  neither  man  nor  fiend;  for  he  perpetrates 
the  foulest  crime,  without  malignity  or  cupidity,  or  any 
other  obvious  motive.  He  slaughters  Elgiva  and  Leolf; 
raises  his  hand  to  assassinate  the  king;  and,  at  Dunstan’s 
command,  climbs  a  tree,  to  howl  there  like  the  Devil;  and 
then  enters  the  cavity  of  the  crucifix,  to  utter  a  solemn  re¬ 
sponse  in  the  person  of  the  Redeemer. 

The  objection  to  this  is  not  the  improbability,  but  the 
revolting  hatefulness  of  the  guilt  which  Dunstan  and  his 
minister  divide  between  them.  Unhappily  it  is  not  his¬ 
torically  improbable,  but  the  reverse.  Sanguinary  and 
devious  have  been  the  paths  along  which  many  a  canonized 
saint  has  climbed  that  celestial  eminence.  Tricks,  as  base 
and  profane  as  that  of  Dunstan’s  crucifix,  have  been  ex¬ 
hibited  or  encouraged,  not  merely  by  the  vulgar  heroes, 
but  by  some  of  the  most  illustrious  fathers  of  the  Church. 
But  if  they  violated  the  eternal  laws  of  God,  it  was  to  ac- 


Taylor’s  edwin  the  fair.  397 

complish  what  they  devoutly  believed  to  be  the  divine  will. 
Saints  and  sinners  might  agree  in  the  means  to  be  used, 
but  they  differed  entirely  as  to  the  ends  to  be  accomplished. 
Ambrose,  preaching  at  Milan  over  the  bleeding  remains  of 
the  disinterred  martyrs,  lent  himself  to  what  he  must  have 
suspected  or  known  to  be  a  lie.  But  the  lie  was  told  and 
exhibited  for  the  confutation  of  the  Arians,  to  which  holy 
object  Ambrose  would  as  readily  have  sacrificed  his  life. 
And  though  evil  done  that  good  may  come,  be  evil  still — 
nay,  an  evil  peculiarly  pestilent  and  hard  to  be  forgiven— 
yet  there  is,  after  all,  a  wide  difference  between  Bishop 
Bonner  and  Jonathan  Wilde.  Devout  fanaticism,  if  it  may 
not  extenuate,  does  at  least  sublimate  crime.  By  the  in¬ 
tensity  of  his  convictions,  the  greatness  of  his  aims,  and  the 
energy  of  his  motives,  the  genuine  fanatic  places  himself  be¬ 
yond  the  reach  of  contempt,  of  disgust,  or  of  unmixed  ab¬ 
horrence.  We  feel  that,  by  the  force  of  circumstances,  the 
noblest  of  men  might  be  betrayed  into  such  illusions,  and 
urged  into  such  guilt  as  his.  We  acknowledge  that,  under 
happier  auspices,  he  might  have  been  the  benefactor,  not 
the  curse  of  his  species.  We  perceive  that,  if  his  erring 
judgment  could  be  corrected,  he  might  even  yet  be  reclaimed 
to  philanthropy  and  to  peace.  If  we  desire  that  retributive 
justice  should  overtake  him,  the  aspiration  is,  that  he  may 
fall  “  a  victim  to  the  gods,”  and  not  be  hewed  as  “  a  carcass 
for  the  hounds.”  Not  such  is  the  vengeance  we  invoke  on 
the  dramatic  Dunstan  and  his  ministering  demon.  We  up~ 
braid  the  tardiness  of  human  invention,  which  laboured  a 
thousand  years  in  the  discovery  of  the  treadmill.  Or  rather 
our  admiration  of  the  genius  which  created  so  noble  an  image 
of  intellectual  power,  ruthless  decision,  and  fearful  hardi¬ 
hood,  is  alloyed  by  some  resentment  that  the  poet  should 
so  have  marred  the  work  of  his  own  hands.  How  noble 
a  work  it  is  will  be  best  understood  by  listening  to  the  solilo¬ 
quy  in  which  Dunstan  communes  with  his  own  heart,  and 
with  his  Maker,  on  the  commission  intrusted  to  him,  and  on 
the  spiritual  temptations  he  has  to  encounter  in  the  dis¬ 
charge  of  it: — 

“  Spirit  of  speculation,  rest,  oh  rest! 

And  push  not  from  her  place  the  spirit  of  prayer! 

God,  thou’st  given  unto  me  a  troubled  being — 

So  move  upon  the  face  thereof,  that  light 
May  be,  and  be  divided  from  the  darkness! 

34 


398 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


Arm  thou  my  soul  that  I  may  smite  and  chase 

The  spirit  of  that  darkness,  whom  not  I 

But  Thou  thro’  me  compellest. — Mighty  power, 

Legions  of  piercing  thoughts  illuminate, 

Hast  Thou  committed  to  my  large  command, 

Weapons  of  light  and  radiant  shafts  of  day, 

And  steeds  that  trample  on  the  tumbling  clouds. 

But  with  them  it  hath  pleased  Thee  to  let  mingle 
Evil  imaginations,  corporal  stings, 

A  host  of  imps  and  Ethiops,  dark  doubts, 

Suggestions  of  revolt. — Who  is’t  that  dares”— 

In  the  same  spirit,  at  once  exulting,  self-exploring,  and 
irreverent,  Duns  tan  bursts  out  in  a  sort  of  paean  on  his  an¬ 
ticipated  success,  as  he  enters  the  Tower  to  persuade  the 
abdication  of  his  sovereign. 

“Kings  shall  bow  down  before  thee,  said  my  soul, 

And  it  is  even  so.  Hail,  ancient  Hold! 

Thy  chambers  are  most  cheerful,  though  the  light 
Enter  not  freely;  for  the  eye  of  God 
Smiles  in  upon  them.  Cherish’d  by  His  smile 
My  heart  is  glad  within  me,  and  to  Him 
Shall  testify  in  works  a  strenuous  joy. 

— Methinks  that  I  could  be  myself  that  rock 
Whereon  the  Church  is  founded, — wind  and  flood 
Beating  against  me,  boisterous  in  vain. 

1  thank  you,  Gracious  Powers!  Supernal  Host! 

I  thank  you  that  on  me,  though  young  in  years, 

Ye  put  the  glorious  charge  to  try  with  fire, 

To  winnow  and  to  purge.  I  hear  you  call! 

A  radiance  and  a  resonance  from  Heaven 
Surrounds  me,  and  my  soul  is  breaking  forth 
In  strength,  as  did  the  new-created  Sun 
When  Earth  beheld  it  first  on  the  fourth  dav. 

God  spake  not  then  more  plainly  to  that  orb 
Than  to  my  spirit  now.  I  hear  the  call. 

My  answer,  God,  and  Earth,  and  Hell  shall  hear. 

But  I  could  reason  with  thee,  Gracious  Power, 

For  that  thou  givest  me  to  perform  thy  work 
Such  sorry  instruments.” 

The  spirit  thus  agitated  had  not  always  been  a  prey  to 
disquieting  thoughts.  Dunstan  had  once  loved  as  other 
men  love,  and  even  on  his  seared  heart  were  engraven  re¬ 
collections  which  revive  in  all  their  youthful  warmth  and 
beauty  as  he  contemplates  the  agonies  of  his  captive  king, 
and  tempts  him  to  abdicate  his  crown  by  the  prospect  of 
his  reunion  to  Elgiva. 


’taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


399 


“  When  Satan  first 
Attempted  me,  ’twas  in  a  woman’s  shape; 

Such  shape  as  may  have  erst  misled  mankind, 

When  Greece  or  Rome  uprear’d  with  Pagan  rites 
Temples  to  Venus,  pictured  there  or  carved 
With  rounded,  polish’d,  and  exuberant  grace, 

And  mien  whose  dimpled  changefulness  betray’d, 

Thro’  jocund  hues,  the  seriousness  of  passion. 

I  was  attempted  thus,  and  Satan  sang, 

With  female  pipe  and  melodies  that  thrill’d 
The  soften’d  soul,  of  mild  voluptuous  ease, 

And  tender  sports  that  chased  the  kindling  hours 
In  odorous  gardens  or  on  terraces, 

To  music  of  the  fountains  and  the  birds, 

Or  else  in  skirting  groves  by  sunshine  smitten, 

Or  warm  winds  kiss’d,  whilst  we  from  shine  to  shade 
Roved  unregarded.  Yes,  ’twas  Satan  sang, 

Because  ’twas  sung  to  me,  whom  God  had  call’d 
To  other  pastime  and  severer  joys. 

But  were  it  not  for  this,  God’s  strict  behest 
Enjoin’d  upon  me, — had  I  not  been  vow’d 
To  holiest  service  rigorously  required, 

I  should  have  owned  it  for  an  Angel’s  voice, 

Nor  ever  could  an  earthly  crown,  or  toys 
And  childishness  of  vain  ambition,  gauds 
And  tinsels  of  the  world,  have  lured  my  heart 
Into  the  tangle  of  those  mortal  cares 
That  gather  round  a  throne.  What  call  is  thine 
From  God  or  Man,  what  voice  within  bids  thee 
Such  pleasures  to  forego,  such  cares  confront!” 

Duns  tan  is  a  superb  sophister.  Observe  with  what  ad¬ 
dress  he  reconciles  himself  to  the  fraud  so  coarse  and  de¬ 
grading  as  that  of  making  his  instrument,  Gurmo,  shake 
the  forest  with  dismal  bowlings,  to  intimate  to  the  passers- 
by  that  the  hour  of  fierce  conflict  between  the  Saint  and 
the  Prince  of  Darkness  had  arrived.  Contempt  of  man¬ 
kind,  and  of  his  supposed  adversary,  are  skilfully  called  up 
to  still  the  voice  of  honour  and  the  remortstrances  of  con¬ 
science. 

44  And  call’st  thou  this  a  fraud,  thou  secular  lack-brain! 
Thou  loose  lay-priest,  I  tell  thee  it  is  none. 

Do  I  not  battle  wage  in  very  deed 

With  Satan!  Yea,  and  conquer!  And  who’s  he 

Saith  falsehood  is  deliver’d  in  these  howls, 

Which  do  but  to  the  vulgar  ear  translate 
Truths  else  to  them  ineffable!  Where’s  Satan? 


400 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


His  presence,  life  and  kingdom]  Not  the  air 
Nor  bowels  of  the  earth,  nor  central  fires 
His  habitat  exhibits;  it  is  here, 

Here  in  the  heart  of  Man.  And  if  from  hence 
I  cast  him  with  discomfiture,  that  truth 
Is  verily  of  the  vulgar  sense  conceived, 

By  utterance  symbolic,  when  they  deem 
That,  met  in  bodily  oppugnancy, 

I  tweak  him  by  the  snout.  A  fair  belief 
Wherein  the  fleshy  and  the  palpable  type 
Doth  of  pure  truth  substantiate  the  essence. 

Enough.  Come  down.  The  screech-owl  from  afar 
Upbraids  thy  usurpation.  Cease,  I  say.” 

It  is  with  admirable  truth  and  insight  into  human  charac- 
er  that  Dunstan  is  made  to  resort  to  artifices,  as  various  as 
he  occasions  suggesting  them,  to  evade  the  expostulations 
with  which  conscience  still  tracks  him  in  the  path  of  guilt. 
From  scorn  of  man  he  passes  to  a  kind  of  adoration  of  the 
mystical  abstract  Being,  to  which,  in  the  absence  of  more 
palpable  idols,  it  is  so  easy  to  render  an  extravagant  homage. 
What  a  labyrinth  of  gigantic,  vague,  half-conceived  images 
is  it  into  which  he  plunges,  in  the  endeavour  to  sustain  his 
own  mind,  by  contemplating  the  majesty  and  the  holiness 
of  the  impersonation  in  the  cause  of  which  he  is  willing  to 
believe  himself  engaged. 


“The  Church  is  great, 

Is  holy,  is  ineffably  divine! 

Spiritually  seen,  and  with  the  eye  of  faith, 

The  body  of  the  Church,  lit  from  within, 

Seems  but  the  luminous  phantom  of  a  b<$dy; 

The  incorporeal  spirit  is  all  in  all. 

Eternity  a  parte  post  et  ante 

So  drinks  the  refuse,  thins  the  material  fibre 

That  lost  in  ultimate  tenuity 

The  actual  and  the  mortal  lineaments, 

The  Church  in  Time,  the  meagre,  definite,  bare, 
Ecclesiastical  anatomy, 

The  body  of  this  death  translates  itself, 
x\nd  glory  upon  glory  swallowing  all 
Makes  earth  a  scarce  distinguishable  speck 
In  universal  heaven.  Such  is  the  Church 
As  seen  by  faith;  but  otherwise  regarded, 

The  body  of  the  Church  it  search’d  in  vain 
To  find  the  seat  of  the  soul;  for  it  is  nowhere. 
Here  are  two  Bishops,  but  ’tis  not  in  them.” 


Taylor’s  edwin  the  fair.  401 

To  the  dramatic  character  of  Dunstan,  the  antithesis  is 
that  of  Wulfstan  the  Wise.  An  idealist  arrested  in  the 
current  of  life  by  the  eddy  of  his  own  thoughts,  he  muses 
away  his  existence  in  one  long,  though  ever-shifting  dream 
of  labours  to  be  undertaken,  and  duties  to  be  performed. 
Studious  of  books,  of  nature,  of  the  heart,  and  of  the  ways 
of  man,  his  intellectual  wealth  feeds  a  perennial  stream  of 
discourse,  which,  meandering  through  every  field  of  specu¬ 
lation,  and  in  turns  enriching  all,  still  changes  the  course  it 
ought  to  pursue,  or  overflows  the  banks  by  which  it  should 
be  confined,  as  often  as  any  obstacle  is  opposed  to  its  con¬ 
tinuous  progress.  Love,  poetry,  friendship,  philosophy, 
war,  politics,  morals,  and  manners,  each  is  profoundly  com 
templated,  eloquently  discussed,  and  helplessly  abandoned, 
by  this  master  of  ineffectual  wisdom:  and  yet  he  is  an  ele¬ 
ment  in  society  which  could  be  worse  spared  than  the 
shrewdest  practical  understanding  in  the  Camp  or  the  Ex¬ 
change.  His  wide  circuit  of  meditation  has  made  him  ca¬ 
tholic,  charitable,  and  indulgent.  In  the  large  horizon 
which  his  mental  eye  traverses,  he  discerns,  such  compre-s 
hensive  analogies,  such  countless  indications  of  the  ereative 
goodness,  and  such  glorious  aspects  of  beauty  and  of  grace, 
as  no  narrower  ken  could  embrace,  and  no  busier  mind 
combine  and  harmonize.  To  form  such  combinations,  and 
to  scatter  prodigally  around  him  the  germs  of  thought,  if 
happily  they  may  bear  fruit  in  intellects  better  disciplined, 
though  less  opulent  than  his  own,  is  the  delight  and  the 
real  duty  of  Wulfstan,  the  colloquial.  His  talk,  when  lis¬ 
teners  are  to  be  had,  thus  becomes  a  ceaseless  exercise  ot 
kindness;  and  even  when  there  are  none  to  heed  him,  an 
imaginary  circle  still  enables  him  to  soliloquize  most  be¬ 
nevolently.  In  this  munificent  diffusion  of  his  mental  trea¬ 
sures,  the  good  man  is  not  merely  happy,  but  invulnerable , 
Let  fortune  play  her  antics  as  she  will,  each  shall  furnish 
him  with  a  text;  and  he  will  embellish  all  with  quaint  con¬ 
ceits  or  diagnostic  expositions.  His  daughter  steals  an  un¬ 
worthy  match;  but  he  rebounds  from  the  shock  to  moralize 
on  parental  disappointment  and  conjugal  constancy.  He  is. 
overborne  and  trampled  down  by  the  energy  of  Dunstan, 
and  immediately  discovers  in  his  misadventure  a  proof  how 
well  the  events  of  his  own  age  are  adapted  for  history;  and 
how  admirably  a  retirement  to  Oxford  will  enable  himself 
to  become  the  historian.  Could  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge 

34* 


402 


STEPHEN'S  MISCELLANIES. 


have  really  thus  blossomed  in  the  iron  age  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons?  It  is  a  hard  problem.  But  the  efflorescence  of 
his  theatrical  representative  is  rendered  probable  to  all  who 
ever  performed  the  pilgrimage  to  the  Hierophant  at’High- 
gate,  in  the  golden  era  of  George  IV.  Never  was  there  a 
group  of  auditors  better  disposed  or  better  able  to  appre¬ 
ciate  the  wisdom  of  a  sage,  than  those  who  are  collected 
round  Wulfstan,  See  with  what  fine  discrimination  and 
keen  relish  his  portrait  is  sketched  by  one  of  them. 

“  Still 

This  life  and  all  that  it  contains,  to  him 

Is  but  a  tissue  of  illuminous  dreams 

Fill’d  with  book  wisdom,  pictured  thought,  and  love 

That  on  its  own  creations  spends  itself. 

All  things  he  understands,  and  nothing  does. 

Profusely  eloquent  in  copious  praise 
Of  action,  he  will  talk  to  you  as  one 
Whose  wisdom  lay  in  dealings  and  transactions; 

Yet  so  much  action  as  might  tie  his  shoe 
Cannot  his  will  command;  himself  alone 
By  his  own  wisdom  not  a  jot  the  gainer. 

Of  silence,  and  the  hundred  thousand  things 
’Tis  bettier  not  to  mention,  he  will  speak, 

And  still  most  wisely — But,  behold!  he  comes.” 

Leolf,  who  thus  delineates  the  character  of  Wulfstan,  is 
about  to  announce  to  the  old  man  the  secret  marriage  of 
his  daughter;  and  as  the  earl  cautiously  approaches  the 
unwelcome  topic,  the  philosopher  finds  in  each  turn  of 
the  discourse  some  theme  which  hurries  him  away  to  a 
boundless  distance  from  the  matter  in  hand.  Obeying  the 
law  by  which  his  own  ideas  are  associated,  but  with  the 
tendency  observable  in  all  dreamers,  sleeping  or  waking, 
to  reconcile  the  vision  with  any  suggestion  from  without, 
he  involves  himself  in  an  inquiry  how  a  man  in  middle 
life  should  wed,  and  on  that  critical  topic  thus  makes  de¬ 
liverance: — 

“  Love  changes  with  the  changing  life  of  man: 

In  its  first  youth,  sufficient  to  itself, 

Heedless  of  all  beside,  it  reigns  alorfc, 

Revels  or  storms,  and  spends  itself  in  passion. 

In  middle  age — a  garden  through  whose  soil 
The  roots  of  neighbouring  forest-trees  have  crept— 

It  strikes  on  stringy  customs  bedded  deep, 


taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


40  3 


Perhaps  on  alien  passions;  still  it  grows 
And  lacks  not  force  nor  freshness:  but  this  age 
Shall  aptly  choose  as  answering  best  its  own, 

A  love  that  clings  not,  nor  is  exigent, 

Encumbers  not  the  active  purposes, 

Nor  drains  their  source;  but  proffers  with  free  grace 
Pleasure  at  pleasure  touch’d,  at  pleasure  waved 
A  washing  of  the  weary  traveller’s  feet, 

A  quenching  of  his  thirst,  a  sweet  repose 

Alternate  and  preparative,  in  groves 

Where  loving  much  the  flower  that  loves  the  shade, 

And  loving  much  the  shade  that  that  flower  loves, 

He  yet  is  unbewilder’d,  unenslaved, 

Thence  starting  light,  and  pleasantly  let  go, 

When  serious  service  calls.” 

Mr.  Shandy’s  expenditure  of  eloquence  on  the  death  of 
his  son,  was  not  more  consolatory  to  the  bereaved  rheto¬ 
rician,  than  are  the  disquisitions  of  Wulfstan  on  his  daugh¬ 
ter’s  undutiful  marriage.  She  must  no  longer  be  muta¬ 
ble  of  purpose.  She  must  study  the  excellent  uses  of 
constancy,  and  abide  in  quietude  of  mind.  The  fickle 
wind  may  be  her  teacher.  Then,  as  if  himself  floating  on 
the  wings  of  some  soft  and  balmy  gale,  the  poetical  sage 
drowns  all  his  parental  anxieties  in  this  light  and  beautiful 
parable: — 

“  The  wind,  when  first  he  rose  and  went  abroad 
Thro’  the  vast  region,  felt  himself  at  fault. 

Wanting  a  voice;  and  suddenly  to  earth 
Descended  with  a  wafture  and  a  swoop, 

Where,  wandering  volatile  from  kind  to  kind, 

He  woo’d  the  several  trees  to  give  him  one. 

First  he  besought  the  ash;  the  voice  she  lent 
Fitfully  with  a  free  and  lashing  change 
Flung  here  and  there  its  sad  uncertainties: 

The  aspen  next;  a  fluttered  frivolous  twitter 
Was  her  sole  tribute:  from  the  willow  came. 

So  long  as  dainty  summer  dress’d  her  out, 

A  whispering  sweetness,  but  her  winter  note 
Was  hissing,  dry,  and  reedy:  lastly  the  pine 
Did  he  solicit,  and  from  her  he  drew 
A  voice  so  constant,  soft,  and  lowly  deep, 

That  there  he  rested,  welcoming  in  her 
A  mild  memorial  of  the  ocean  cave 
Where  he  was  born.” 


404  Stephen’s  miscellanies. 

The  spirit  of  rumination  possesses  all  the  persons  of  this 
drama.  No  wonder,  then,  that  Leolf  feeds  on  his  own 
thoughts,  as  best  becomes  a  discarded  lover.  But  of  that 
deplorable  class  of  mankind,  he  is  a  remarkable,  if  not 
altogether  a  new  Variety.  He  had  climbed  the  central 
arch  in  the  bridge  of  life,  painfully  conscious  of  the  soli¬ 
tude  of  his  heart  in  the  midst  of  the  busy  crowd,  and  che¬ 
rishing  a  vague  but  earnest  desire  for  deliverance.  An 
ideal  form,  lovely  as  the  day-spring,  and  radiant  with  love 
to  him,  haunted  his  path,  and  he  lived  in  the  faith  that 
the  bright  reality  would  at  length  be  disclosed,  when  his 
spirit  should  know  the  blessedness  of  that  union  which 
mystically  represents  to  man  the  design  and  the  perfection 
of  his  being.  She  came,  or  seemed  to  come,  in  the  form 
of  Elgiva — the  glorious  impersonation  of  that  dazzling  fan¬ 
tasy — the  actual  fulfilment  of  many  a  dream,  too  fondly 
courted  by  his  solemn  and  overburdened  mind.  Nature 
had  made  her  beautiful,  and,  even  when  the  maiden’s  ruby 
Ups  were  closed,  her  beaming  eye  and  dimpled  cheek  gave 
utterance  to  thoughts,  now  more  joyous  or  impassioned, 
now  more  profound  or  holy,  than  any  which  could  be  im¬ 
parted  through  the  coarser  vehicle  of  articulate  speech.  So 
judged  the  enamoured  interpreter  of  that  fair  tablet — mis¬ 
taking  for  emanations  of  her  mind  the  glowing  hues  reflected 
by  the  brilliant  surface  from  his  own.  He  threw  over  the 
object  of  his  homage  all  the  most  rich  and  graceful  dra¬ 
peries  stored  in  the  wardrobe  of  his  own  pensive  imagina¬ 
tion;  unconsciously  worshipped  the  creature  of  his  own 
fancy;  and  adorned  her  with  a  diadem  which,  though  visible 
to  him  alo-ne,  had  for  a  true  heart  a  greater  value  than  the 
proudest  crown  which  could  be  shared  with  kings. 

Such  was  not  Elgiva’ s  judgment.  Her  ear  drank  in  the 
flatteries  of  Edwin;  nor  had  he  long  to  sue  for  the  hand 
which  had  been  plighted  to  the  champion  and  defender  of 
his  throne,  A  ready  vengeance  wras  in  the  grasp  of  Leolf. 
One  word  from  him  would  have  sealed  the  doom  of  his 
successful  rival.  But  no  such  words  passed  his  lips.  In 
his  solitude  he  probes  the  incurable  wound  which  had 
blighted  all  the  hopes,  and  dispelled  all  the  illusions  of  life. 
He  broods  with  melancholy  intentness  over  the  bleak  pros¬ 
pect,  and  drains  to  the  dregs  the  bitter  cup  of  irremediable 
desolation.  But  in  his  noble  spirit  there  is  no  place  for 
scorn,  resentment,  or  reproach.  His  duty,  though  it  be 


Taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


405 


to  protect  with  his  life  the  authors  of  his  wretchedness,  is 
performed  in  the  true  spirit  of  duty; — quietly,  earnestly, 
and  without  vaunt  or  ostentation.  He  has  sympathy  to 
spare  for  the  sorrows  of  others,  while  demanding  none  for 
his  own.  He  extenuates  with  judicial  rectitude  and  calm¬ 
ness  Elgiva’s  infidelity  to  himself,  and  loyally  dies  to  re¬ 
store  her  to  the  arms  of  her  husband. 

Leolf  is  the  portrait  of  a  man  in  whose  mind  justice,  in 
the  largest  conception  of  the  word,  exercises  an  undisputed 
sway; — silencing,  though  it  cannot  assuage,  the  deepest 
sorrow,  repressing  all  the  importunities  of  self-love,  re¬ 
straining  every* severe  and  uncharitable  censure,  and  ex¬ 
citing  the  faithful,  though  unrequited,  discharge  of  all  the 
obligations  of  loyalty,  and  love,  and  honour.  The  world 
in  which  we  live  abounds  in  models,  which  may  have  sug¬ 
gested,  by  the  power  of  contrast,  this  image  of  a  states¬ 
man  and  a  soldier.  Haughty  self-assertion  is  not  merely 
pardoned  in  our  public  men,  but  takes  its  place  among  their 
conventional  virtues.  We  are  accustomed  to  extol  that 
exquisite  sensitiveness  which  avenges  every  wrong,  and  re¬ 
pels  every  indignity,  even  though  the  welfare  of  our  com¬ 
mon  country  be  the  sacrifice.  To  appreciate  the  majesty 
of  a  mind  which,  in  the  most  conspicuous  stations  of 
life,  surrenders  itself  to  the  guidance  of  perfect  equity — and 
of  humility,  the  offspring  of  equity;  which  has  mastered 
resentment  and  pride  as  completely  as  all  the  baser  passions 
— we  must  turn  from  the  real  to  the  mimetic  theatre,  and 
study  man  not  as  he  actually  is,  in  camps  and  parliaments, 
but  as  he  is  here  exhibited  on  the  stage. 

Relieved  from  attendance  on  his  feeble  sovereign  and 
faithless  queen,  Leolf  (a  great  soliloquist)  takes  his  stand 
on  the  sea-shore,  and  thus  gives  utterance  to  the  thoughts 
which  disappointment  had  awakened  in  his  melancholy, 
though  well-balanced  mind: — 

“  Rocks  that  beheld  my  boyhood!  Perilous  shelf 
That  nursed  my  infant  courage!  Once  again 
T  stand  before  you — not  as  in  other  days 
In  your  gray  faces  smiling — but  like  you 
The  worse  for  weather.  Here  again  I  stand, 

Again,  and  on  the  solitary  shore 
Old  ocean  plays  as  on  an  instrument, 

Making  that  ancient  music,  when  not  known? 

That  ancient  music  only  not  so  old 
As  He  who  parted  ocean  from  dry  land 


406 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


And  saw  that  it  was  good.  Upon  my  ear, 

As  in  the  season  of  susceptive  youth, 

The  mellow  murmur  falls-— but  finds  the  sense 
Bull’d  by  distemper;  shall  I  say — by  time? 

Enough  in  action  has  my  life  been  spent 
Through  the  past  decade,  to  rebate  the  edge 
Of  early  sensibility.  The  sun 
Rides  high,  and  on  the  thoroughfares  of  life 
I  find  myself  a  man  in  middle  age, 

Busy  and  hard  to  please.  The  sun  shall  soon 
Dip  westerly, — but  oh!  how  little  like 
Are  life’s  two  twilights!  Would  the  lagt  were  first 
And  the  first  last!  that  so  we  might  be*soothed 
Upon  the  thoroughfares  of  busy  life 
Beneath  the  noon  day  sun,  with  hope  of  joy 
Fresh  as  the  morn, — with  hope  of  breaking  lights, 
Illuminated  mists  and  spangled  lawns 
And  woodland  orisons  and  unfolding  flowers, 

As  things  in  expectation. — Weak  of  faith! 

Is  not  the  course  of  earthly  outlook,  thus 
Reversed  from  Hope,  an  argument  to  Hope 
That  she  was  licensed  to  the  heart  of  man 
For  other  than  for  earthly  contemplations, 

In  that  observatory  domiciled 
For  survey  of  the  stars!” 

It  is  in  his  last  interview  with  Elgiva  that  the 
of  Leolf  is  best  exhibited.  He  has  rescued  her 
tivity,  and,  during  a  transient  pause  in  her  flight 
to  Edwin,  the  inconstant  Queen  expresses  her 
and  suggests  her  contrition.  It  is  a  scene  of  pathos  and 
dignity  which  we  should  rejoice  to  transfer  into  our  pages, 
but  which  would  be  impaired  by  abridgment,  and  is  too 
long  for  quotation  as  it  stands. 

If  Leolf  is  the  example  of  the  magnanimous  endurance 
of  the  ills  of  life,  Athulf,  his  friend  and  brother  soldier,  is 
the  portrait  of  a  man  born  to  encounter  and  to  baffle  them. 
It  is  drawn  with  the  elaborate  care,  and  touched  and  re¬ 
touched  Ay i th  the  parental  fondness  with  which  authors 
cherish,  and  sometimes  enervate,  their  favoured  progeny. 
Unfortunately,  Athulf  is  surrounded  by  a  throng  of  drama¬ 
tic  persons,  who  afford  him  no  sufficient  space  for  action 
or  for  speech.  We  become  acquainted  with  him  chiefly  by 
observing  the  impression  he  leaves  on  the  minds  of  his  as¬ 
sociates,  his  enemies,  and  his  friends.  Wulfstan  the  Wise 
is  one  of  these;  upd  he  will  describe  Athulf  with  a  warmth 


character 
from  cap- 
with  him 
gratitude, 


taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


407 


and  vigour  which  it  is  impossible  to  emulate,  although  it 
must  be  admitted  to  be  not  inconsiderably  abstruse— an  in- 
lirmity  to  which  the  good  Wulfstan  is  greatly  addicted. 

“  Much  mirth  he  hath,  and  yet  less  mirth  than  fancy. 

His  is  that  nature  of  humanity 

Which  both  ways  doth  redound,  rejoicing  now 

With  soarings  of  the  soul,  anon  brought  low: 

For  such  the  law  that  rules  the  larger  spirits. 

This  soul  of  man,  this  elemental  crisis, 

Completed,  should  present  the  universe 
Abounding  in  all  kinds;  and  unto  all 
One  law  is  common, — that  their  act  and  reach 
Stretch’d  to  the  farthest  is  resilient  ever, 

And  in  resilience  hath  its  plenary  force. 

Against  the  gust  remitting  fiercelier  burns 
The  fire,  than  with  the  gust  it  burnt  before. 

The  richest  mirth,  the  richest  sadness  too, 

Stands  from  a  groundwork  of  its  opposite; 

For  these  extremes  upon  the  way  to  meet 
Take  a  wide  sweep  of  Nature,  gathering  in 
Harvests  of  sundry  seasons.” 

With  Dunstan,  Leolf,  Wulfstan,  and  Athulf,  are  associated 
a  rich  variety  of  other  characters — some  elaborately,  some 
slightly,  sketched — and  some  exhibited  in  that  rapid  out¬ 
line  which  is  designed  to  suggest,  rather  than  to  portray 
the  image  which  occupies  the  poet’s  fancy.  There  is  Odo 
the  Archbishop,  the  sport  of  the  winds  and  currents,  into 
which  this  victim  of  dignity  and  circumstances  is  passively 
borne — a  sort  of  rouge  dragon ,  or  clarencieux  king-at-arms, 
hurried  by  some  misadventure  in  feats  of  real  chivalry, 
with  nothing  but  tabard  and  mantle  to  oppose  to  the  sharp 
sword  and  heavy  battle-axe;— and  Clarenbald,  by  office  a 
Lord  Chancellor,  a  pompous  patronising  appendage  of  roy¬ 
alty,  who,  in  an  age  of  war  and  treason,  and  amidst  the 
clash  of  arms,  is  no  better  than  a  kind  of  master  of  the 
ceremonies  in  the  Aula  Regia ; — and  Ruold,  a  hair-brained 
gallant,  whom  the  frown  of  a  polished  brow,  or  the  smile 
of  a  dimpled  cheek,  will  mould  to  the  fair  one’s  purposes, 
though  faith,  life,  and  honour  should  be  the  forfeit: — and 
Edwin  himself,  the  slave  in  turn  of  every  passion  which 
assails  him,  love,  anger,  despondency,  impatience,  and  re¬ 
venge,  ever  wasting  his  energies  to  no  purpose,  and  play¬ 
ing  the  fool  with  the  indefeasible  dignity  of  him  who  at 
once  wears  and  worships  an  hereditary  crown;  and  Elgiva, 


08 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


the  storm-compelling  beauty,  who  sets  a  world  in  flames, 
and  who  has  proceeded  from  the  hands  of  her  dramatic 
creator  with  a  character  entirely  neutral  and  unformed;  in 
order  that  all  may  ascribe  to  her  such  fascinations  as  may 
best  explain  to  each  the  mystery  of  her  influence  over  the 
weak  and  the  wise,  the  feeble  and  the  resolute;- — and 
Emma,  a  damsel  whose  virtue  (for  she  is  virtuous  and 
good,  and  firm  of  heart)  is  but  little  indebted  to  her  discre¬ 
tion;  for  the  maiden  is  possessed  by  the  spirit  of  intrigue 
and  intermeddling,  and,  at  his  bidding,  assumes  by  turns 
the  disguises  of  a  wife,  of  a  strolling  minstrel,  and  of  a 
priest,  to  disentangle  the  webs  which  she  has  spun;  and 
there  are  military  leaders  and  ecclesiastics,  fortune-tellers 
and  scholars,  jesters,  swineherds,  and  foresters — to  each  of 
whom  is  assigned  some  share  in  the  dialogue  or  in  the  plot 
-—which  glows  like  the  firmament  with  stars  of  every  mag¬ 
nitude,  clustering  into  constellations  of  endless  variety. 

This  crowding  of  the  scene  at  once  conduces  to  the 
beauty,  and  impairs  the  interest  of  this  drama.  If  our 
arithmetic  fail  us  not,  there  appear  on  the  stage  not  fewer 
than  fifty  interlocutors,  who  jostle  and  cross  each  other 
- — impede  the  development  of  the  fable,  and  leave  on 
the  mind  of  the  reader,  or  of  the  spectator,  an  impression 
at  once  indistinct  and  fatiguing.  It  is  not  till  after  a  second 
or  a  third  perusal,  that  the  narrative  or  succession  of  events 
emerges  distinctly  from  the  throng  of  the  doings  and  the 
sayings.  But  each  successive  return  to  this  drama  brings 
to  light,  with  a  still  increasing  brilliancy,  the  exquisite 
structure  of  the  verse,  the  manly  vigour  of  thought,  and  the 
deep  wisdom  to  which  it  gives  most  musical  utterance;  the 
cordial  sympathy  of  the  poet  with  all  that  is  to  be  loved 
and  revered  in  our  common  nature,  and  his  no  less  gene¬ 
rous  antipathy  for  all  that  debases  and  corrupts  it;  his  sa¬ 
gacious  and  varied  insight  into  the  chambers  of  imagery  in 
the  human  heart;  and  the  all-controlling  and  faultless  taste 
which  makes  him  intuitively  conscious  of  the  limits  which 
separate  the  beautiful  from  the  false,  the  extravagant,  and 
the  affected. 

A  great  writer  is  his  own  most  formidable  rival.  If 
“Edwin  the  Fair”  shall  fail  of  due  acceptance,  it  will  be 
more  to  “Philip  Fan  Artevelde”  than  to  any  other  hostile 
critic  that  such  ill  success  will  be  really  owing.  Mr.  Tay¬ 
lor  has  erected  a  standard  by  which  he  must  be  measured 


Taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


409 


and  judged.  The  sect  of  the  Takersdown  is  a  large  and 
active  fraternity,  among  whom  there  are  never  wanting 
some  to  speak  of  powers  impaired,  and  of  exhausted  re¬ 
sources.  Untrue,  in  fact,  as  such  a  censure  would  be,  it 
would  not  be  quite  destitute  of  plausibility.  “Philip  Van 
Artevelde  ”  has  a  deeper  and  more  concentrated  interest 
than  “Edwin  the  Fair.”  It  approaches  far  more  nearly  to 
the  true  character  of  tragedy.  Virtues,  hazardous  in  their 
growth,  majestic  in  their  triumph,  and  venerable  even  in 
the  fall,  shed  a  glory  round  the  hero,  with  which  the  guilt 
and  the  impunity  of  Dunstan  form  a  painful  contrast.  The 
scene  of  the  plSy,  moreover,  is  more  warm  and  genial,  and 
the  versification  flows  more  easily,  and  in  closer  resem¬ 
blance  to  the  numerous  prose  of  Massinger  and  of  Fletcher. 
There  is  also  less  of  the  uniformity  which  may  be  observed 
in  the  style  of  “  Edwin,”  where  churchmen,  laics  and 
ladies,  are  all  members  of  one  family,  and  have  all  the  fami¬ 
ly  failing,  of  talking  philosophy.  The  idle  King  himself 
moralizes  not  a  little;  and  even  the  rough  huntsman  pauses 
to  compare  the  fawning  of  his  dogs  with  the  flatteries  of 
the  court.  But  if  the  earlier  work  be  the  greater  drama,  the 
later  is  assuredly  the  greater  poem.  More  abundant  men¬ 
tal  resources  of  every  kind  are  there — knowledge  more 
comprehensive — an  imagination  at  once  more  prompt  and 
more  discursive— the  ear  tuned  to  a  keener  sense  of  har¬ 
mony — the  points  of  contact  and  sympathy  with  the  world 
multiplied — and  the  visible  traces  of  that  kind  influence 
which  passing  years  have  obviously  shed  on  a  mind  always 
replete  with  energy  and  courage,  but  which  had  not,  till 
now,  given  proof  that  it  was  informed  in  an  equal  degree 
by  charity,  benevolence,  and  compassion. 

It  is,  indeed,  rather  as  a  poet  than  as  a  dramatist  that 
Mr.  Taylor  claims  the  suffrage  of  those  with  whom  it  rests 
to  confer  the  high  reward  of  his  labours.  In  a  memorable 
essay,  prefixed  to  his  former  tragedy,  he  explained  and 
vindicated,  not  his  dramatic  but  his  poetical  creed,  and 
then,  as  now,  proceeded  to  illustrate  his  own  doctrines. 
To  the  credit  of  having  discovered  any  latent  truth,  or  of 
having  unfolded  any  new  theory  of  the  sublime  art  he  pur¬ 
sues,  he,  of  course,  made  no  pretension.  It  would  have 
been  utterly  at  variance  with  the  robust  sense  which  is 
impressed  on  eyery  page  he  writes.  His  object  was  to 
refute  a  swarm  of  popular  sectarians,  by  proclaiming  anew 
35 


410 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


the  ancient  and  Catholic  faith.  As  the  first  postulate  of 
his  argument,  he  laid  it  clown,  that  if  a  man  would  write 
well,  either  with  rhythm  or  without,  it  behooved  him  to 
have  something  to  say.  From  this  elementary  truth,  he 
proceeded  to  the  more  abstruse  and  questionable  tenet,  that 
“no  man  can  be  a  very  great  poet  who  is  not  also  a  great 
philosopher.” 

To  what  muse  the  highest  honour  is  justly  due,  and 
what  exercises  of  the  poetic  faculty  ought  to  command,  in 
the  highest  degree,  the  reverence  of  mankind,  are  problems 
not  to  be  resolved  without  an  inquiry  into  various  recon¬ 
dite  principles.  But  it  is  a  far  less  obscurequestion  what  is 
the  poetry  which  men  do  really  love,  ponder,  commit  to  me¬ 
mory,  incorporate  into  the  mass  of  their  habitual  thoughts, 
digest  as  texts,  or  cherish  as  anodynes.  This  is  a  matter 
of  fact,  which  Paternoster  Row,  if  endowed  with  speech, 
could  best  determine.  It  would  be  brought  to  a  decision, 
if  some  literary  deluge  (in  the  shape,  for  example,  of  a 
prohibitory  book-tax)  should  sweep  over  the  land — con¬ 
signing  to  the  abyss  our  whole  poetical  patrimony,  and  all 
the  treasures  of  verse  accumulated  in  our  own  generation. 
In  that  frightful  catastrophe,  who  are  the  poets  whom  pious 
hands  would  be  stretched  out  to  save?  The  philosophical? 
They  would  sink  unheeded,  with  Lucretius  at  their  head. 
Or  the  allegorical?  The  waves  would  close  unresistingly 
over  them,  though  the  Faery  Queen  herself  should  be 
submerged.  Or  the  descriptive?  Windsor  Forest  and 
Grongar  Hill  would  disappear,  with  whole  galleries  of  in¬ 
ferior  paintings.  Or  the  witty?  In  such  a  tempest  even 
Hudibras  would  not  be  rich  enough  to  attract  the  zeal  of 
the  Salvors.  Or  the  moral?  Essays  on  man,  with  an  in¬ 
finite  variety  of  the  “  pleasures  ”  of  man’s  intellectual  facul¬ 
ties,  would  sink  unwept  in  the  vast  whirlpool.  There,  too, 
would  perish,  Lucan,  with  a  long  line  of  heroic  cantos,  ro¬ 
mances  in  verse,  and  rhymes- — amorous,  fantastic,  and  Bac¬ 
chanalian.  But,  at  whatever  cost  or  hazard,  leaves  would 
be  snatched,  in  that  universal  wreck,  from  the  digressions 
and  interstitial  passages  of  the  three  great  Epics  of  Greece, 
Italy,  and  England.  The  bursts  of  exultation  and  agony  in 
the  “  Agamemnon  ”  would  be  rescued;  with  some  of  the 
Anthologies,  and  a  few  of  the  Odes  of  Anacreon  and  Ho¬ 
race.  There  would  be  a  sacred  emulation  to  save,  from 
the  all-absorbing  flood,  “  L’ Allegro”  and  “II  Penseroso;” 


taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


411 


with  the  “  Odes  and  Fables  of  Dryden,”  “  Ilenry  and 
Emma,”  the  “  Rape  of  the  Lock,”  and  “the  Epistle  to  Abe¬ 
lard;”  Gray’s  “Bard,”  and  “Elegy,”  Lord  Lyttleton’s 
“Monody,”  “The  Traveller,”  “The  Deserted  Village,” 
and  “The  Task,”  Mr.  Campbell’s  Shorter  Poems,  and 
some  of  Mr.  Wordsworth’s  Sonnets;  while  the  very  spirit 
of  martyrdom  would  be  roused  for  the  preservation  of 
Burns,  and  the  whole  Shakspearian  theatre;  ballads  and  old 
songs  out  of  number;  much  devotional  Psalmody,  and*  far 
above  all  the  rest,  the  inspired  songs  of  the  sweet  singer 
of  Israel. 

No  man,  says  Dr.  Johnson,  is  a  hypocrite  in  his  plea¬ 
sures.  At  school  we  learn  by  heart  the  De  Arte  Poeticd . 
At  College  we  are  lectured  in  the  Poetics.  Launched  into 
the  wide  world,  we  criticise  or  write,  as  it  may  happen, 
essays  on  the  sublime  and  beautiful.  But  on  the  lonely 
sea-shore,  or  river-bank,  or  in  the  evening  circle  of  family 
faces,  or  when  the  hearth  glows  on  the  silent  chamber 
round  which  a  man  has  ranged  the  chosen  companions  of 
his  solitary  hours,  with  which  of  them  does  lie  really  hold 
the  most  frequent  and  grateful  intercourse?  Is  it  not  with 
those  who  best  give  utterance  to  his  own  feelings,  whether 
gay  or  mournful;  or  who  best  enable  him  to  express  the 
otherwise  undefinable  emotions  of  the  passing  hour?  Phi¬ 
losophy  is  the  high  privilege  of  a  few,  but  the  affections 
are  the  birthright  of  all.  It  was  an  old  complaint,  that 
when  wisdom  lifted  up  her  voice  in  the  streets,  none  would 
regard  it;  but  when  was  the  genuine  voice  of  passion  ever 
unheeded?  It  is  the  universal  language.  It  is  the  speech 
intelligible  to  every  human  being,  though  spoken,  with  any 
approach  to  perfection,  by  that  little  company  alone,  who  are 
from  time  to  time  inspired  to  reveal  man  to  himself,  and  to 
sustain  and  multiply  the  bonds  of  the  universal  brotherhood. 
It  is  a  language  of  such  power  as  to  reject  the  aid  of  orna¬ 
ment,  fulfilling  its  object  best  when  it  least  strains  and 
taxes  the  merely  intellectual  faculties.  The  poets,  whom 
men  secretly  worship,  are  distinguished  from  the  rest,  not 
only  by  the  art  of  ennobling  common  subjects;  but  by  the 
rarer  gift  of  imparting  beauty  to  common  thoughts,  inte¬ 
rest  to  common  feelings,  and  dignity  to  common  speech. 
True  genius  of  this  order  can  never  be  vulgar,  and  can, 
therefore,  afford  to  be  homely.  It  can  never  be  trite,  and 
can,  therefore,  pass  along  the  beaten  paths. 

35* 


412 


Stephen’s  miscellanies. 


What  philosophy  is  there  in  the  wail  of  Cassandra? 
in  the  last  dialogue  of  Hector  and  Andromache?  in  Gray’s 
“Elegy?”  or  in  the  Address  to  “Mary  in  Heaven?” 
And  yet  when  did  philosophy  ever  appeal  to  mankind  in 
a  voice  equally  profound?  About  four-and-twenty  years  ago 
Mr.  Wolfe  established  a  great  and  permanent  reputation  by 
half  a  dozen  stanzas.  Almost  as  many  centuries  have 
passed  since  the  great  poetess  of  Greece  effected  a  similar 
triumph  with  as  small  an  expenditure  of  words.  Was  Mr. 
Wolfe  a  philosopher,  or  was  Sappho?  They  were  simply 
poets,  who  could  set  the  indelible  impress  of  genius  on 
what  all  the  world  had  been  feeling  and  saying  before. 
They  knew  how  to  appropriate  for  ever  to  themselves  a 
combination  of  thoughts  and  feelings,  which,  except  in  the 
combination,  have  not  a  trace  of  novelty,  nor  the  slightest 
claim  to  be  regarded  as  original.  In  shorter  terms,  they 
knew  how  to  write  heart  language. 

A  large  proportion  of  the  material  of  which  the  poetry 
of  David,  iEschylus,  Homer,  and  Shakspeare  is  composed, 
if  presented  for  use  to  many  of  our  greatest  writers  in  its 
unwrought  and  unfashioned  state,  would  infallibly  be  re¬ 
jected  as  common-place,  and  unworthy  of  all  regard.  Our 
poets  must  now  be  philosophers;  as  Burke  has  taught  all 
our  prose  writers,  and  most  of  our  prosaic  speakers  to  be, 
at  least  in  effort  and  desire.  Hence  it  is  that  so  large  a 
part  of  poetry  which  is  now  published  is  received  as  wor¬ 
thy  of  all  admiration,  but  not  of  much  love— -is  praised  in 
society,  and  laid  aside  in  solitude— is  rewarded  by  an  un¬ 
disputed  celebrity,  but  not  by  any  heartfelt  homage— is 
heard  as  the  discourse  of  a  superior,  but  not  as  the  voice 
of  a  brother. 

The  diligent  students  and  cultivated  admirers  of  poetry 
will  assign  to  the  author  of  “  Edwin  the  Fair  ”  a  rank  se¬ 
cond  to  none  of  the  competitors  for  the  laurel  in  his  own 
generation.  They  will  celebrate  the  rich  and  complex  har¬ 
mony  of  his  metre,  the  masculine  force  of  his  under¬ 
standing,  the  wide  range  of  his  survey  of  life  and  manners, 
and  the  profusion  with  which  he  can  afford  to  lavish  his 
intellectual  resources.  The  mere  lovers  of  his  art  will 
complain,  that  in  the  consciousness  of  his  own  mental 
wealth,  he  forgets  the  prevailing  poverty;  that  he  levies  too 
severe  a  tribute  of  attention,  and  exacts  from  a  thoughtless 
world  meditations  more  deep,  and  abstractions  more  pro- 


taylor’s  edwin  the  fair. 


413 


longed,  than  they  are  able  or  willing  to  command.  Right 
or  wrong,  it  is  but  as  the  solace  of  the  cares,  and  as  an 
escape  from  the  lassitude  of  life,  that  most  men  surrender 
their  minds  to  the  fascination  of  poetry;  and  they  are  not 
disposed  to  obey  the  summons  to  arduous  thinking,  though 
proceeding  from  a  stage  resplendent  with  picturesque  forms, 
and  resounding1  with  the  most  varied  harmonies.  They 
will  admit  that  the  author  of  “  Edwin  the  Fair”  can  both 
judge  as  a  philosopher,  and  feel  as  a  poet;  but  will  wish 
that  his  poetry  had  been  less  philosophical,  or  his  philoso¬ 
phy  less  poetical.  It  is  a  wish  which  will  be  seconded  by 
those  who  revere  his  wisdom,  and  delight  in  his  genius; 
and  who,  therefore,  regret  to  anticipate  that  his  labours 
will  hardly  be  rewarded  by  an  early  or  an  extensive  popu¬ 
larity. 


THE  END. 


s'  -  • 


v’  .  .  >  • 

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PHEN, — ARE  NOW  READY  IN  TWELVE  VOLUMES  ELEGANTLY 
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Works,  Modern  Periodical  Literature,  On  the  Genius  and  Writings  of  Words¬ 
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Period  to  the  Norman  Conquest.  By  SHARON  TURNER,  Au- 
thor  of  “The  Sacred  History  of  the  World.”  In  2  vols.  8vo. 

“It  is  from  the  press  of  Carey  &  Hart,  and  affords  another  evidence,  from  the 
excellent  style  in  which  it  is  reprinted,  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  publishers  the 
American  public  will  sustain  their  efforts  in  presenting  works  more  valuable  than 
the  almost  worthless  fictions  of  the  day.  Mr.  Turner  begins  with  the  history  of 
the  various  nations  which  became  possessed  of  Britain  in  the  earliest  ages,  ex¬ 
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government,  laws,  superstitions,  and  literature  of  the  Heptarchy  are  fully  dis¬ 
cussed  in  an  able  manner;  and  the  appendix  contains  many  interesting  as  well  as 
instructive  notices  of  other  matters  relating  to  the  Saxons,  as,  for  instance,  the 
strength  and  beauty  of  their  language,  and  comparisons  between  the  greatest  Eng¬ 
lish  writers  respecting  their  use  of  real  Saxon  words.  It  will  be  found  that  per¬ 
haps  the  most  English  work  extant  is  the  translation  of  the  Bible  now  in  use,  and 
certainly  no  work  could  furnish  a  stronger  argument  of  the  capabilities  of  our 
vernacular.  We  commend  this  work  as  a  valuable  addition  to  popular  know¬ 
ledge. 

“This  edition  is  an  exact  reprint  of  the  London  edition,  and  contains  all  the 
Saxon  language,  the  type  of  which  was  cast  expressly  for  it.  The  French  edi¬ 
tion,  of  which  a  considerable  number  have  been  imported  into  this  country,  does 
not  contain  a  single  word  of  Saxon.” — Boston  Morning  Post. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LORENZO  DE’  MEDICI,  called  the  Magnificent. 
By  WILLIAM  ROSCOE,  Esq.  A  new  edition  in  2  vols.  8vo., 
with  the  Appendix  and  all  the  Notes  in  the  original  edition. 

The  publishers  deem  it  proper  to  state  this  fact,  as  an  edition  has  lately  ap¬ 
peared  which  contains  the  text,  but  in  which  the  Appendix  and  a  large  portion 
of  the  valuable  Notes  are  entirely  omitted. 

“The  Life  of  Lorenzo  de’  Medici  quickly  attracted  the  attention  and  excitec 
the  applause  of  a  discerning  public.  The  style  is  pure  and  elegant— the  factsare 
interesting  and  instructive.  I  hardly  know  a  work  of  its  kind,  which  evinces 
throughout  a  more  delicate  taste,  exercised  upon  a  more  felicitous  subject.  Kos- 
coe  is  almost  the  regenerator,  among  Englishmen,  of  a  love  of  Italian  literature.” 
— JDibdin. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  FICTION:  Being  a  critical  Account  of  the 
most  celebrated  Works  of  Fiction,  from  the  earliest  Greek  Ro¬ 
mances  to  the  Novels  of  the  present  Day.  By  JOHN  DUNLOP, 
Author  of  the  “  History  of  Roman  Literature.”  Handsomely 
printed  in  2  vols.  12mo. 


MISS  BURNEY’S  DIARY.  Part  V.  of  the  Diary  of  Madame 
D’Arblay,  Author  of  “  Evelina,”  “  Cecilia,”  &c.  &c.  Including 
the  period  of  her  residence  at  the  Court  of  Queen  Charlotte. 
Edited  by  her  Niece. 

“  Madame  D’Arblay  lived  to  be  a  classic.  Time  set  on  her  fame  before  she 
went  hence  that  seal  which  is  seldom  set  except  on  the  fame  of  the  departed. 
All  those  whom  we  have  been  accustomed  to  revere  as  intellectual  patriarchs 
seemed  children  when  compared  with  her;  for  Burke  had  sat  up  all  night  to  read 
her  writings,  and  Johnson  had  pronounced  her  superior  to  Fielding,  when  Rogers 
was  still  a  school-boy,  and  Southey  still  in  petticoats.  Her  Diary  is  written  in 
her  earliest  and  best  manner;  in  true  woman’s  English,  clear,  natural  and  lively. 
It  ought  to  be  consulted  by  every  person  who  wishes  to  be  well  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  our  literature  and  our  manners.  The  account  which  she  gives  of 
the  king’s  illness  will,  we  think,  be  more  valued  by  the  historians  of  a  future  age 
than  any  equal  portions  of  Bepys’  or  Evelyn’s  Diaries.”—  T.  B.  Macaulay. 


. 


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